The Squad
by valinorean
Summary: Within the Ministry of Magic is a department that takes on the assignments that the DMLE cannot. They are composed of an elite group of individuals who specialise in combat, infiltration and reconnaissance. Their identities are classified and missions are top-secret. They answer to no one save the Minister of Magic himself :: Harry/Draco SLASH :: Written for 2011 HD Holidays
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** The Squad  
**Author:** vala (**valinorean**)  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Summary:** Within the Ministry of Magic is a department that takes on the assignments that the DMLE cannot. They are composed of an elite group of individuals that specialise in combat, infiltration and reconnaissance. Their identities are classified and missions are top-secret. They answer to no one save the Minister of Magic himself.  
**Characters:** Harry/Draco, original characters  
**Word Count:** 20k++  
**Contains:** mentions of violence that would probably bump this rating to R  
**Beta:** wendypops  
**Disclaimer:** All recognizable characters are created and owned by JK Rowling and various publishers. This was written for fun, not for profit.  
**Author's Notes:** This was inspired by the book _Inside Delta Force by Eric Haney_. Most terminologies used here are taken from the US Special Forces as I know next to nothing about British SAS. This was written for the fest **HD Holidays 2011** at Livejournal.

* * *

**The Squad**  
by vala

* * *

_Present Time, Unknown Location_

* * *

Harry huddled further into the corner of his cell, shoulders hunched and hands tucked under his armpits, trying to keep the heat from seeping out of his body. A shiver wracked his entire frame and he knew that it was no use. His clothes were soaking wet and the walls felt like blocks of Arctic ice against his back. Outside, the wind howled as the unusually vicious storm continued to rage.

His cell was in the basement underneath his captors' safe house. The headroom was low, but the floor space was large enough to fit Hagrid's pumpkin patch and still have room to spare. There was an opening on the north wall that served as his window and was level with the ground outside. It was so small that he could barely fit his hand through the gap, but it was enough for water to trickle into his cell and soak everything inside, including him.

It had been five days since he was captured, or at least since he had woken up in his cell feeling like he'd been trampled by a herd of thestrals or completely hung over after a night of drinking with Ron. The fact that he could not remember anything made him suspect that he was Obliviated somewhere along the way. All he knew was that something in their mission, a standard infiltration and extraction assignment, went wrong. Their team had had no choice but to abort the mission and scatter to Merlin knew where.

During the first few days of Harry's captivity, they tried to force information out of him to find the whereabouts of the other members of his team. He recognised all the various interrogation techniques they used: pain infliction, stress positions, sleep and food deprivation, and magical manipulation. Twenty hours of interrogation with a harsh light shining on his face, magical devices and curses that could rival the pain of a Cruciatus but still on this side of legal, and even double-doses of Veritaserum in tandem with Legilimency.

These were all standard techniques designed to break any man, keeping him on the brink of death or insanity, only to pull him back at the last second before repeating the process all over again.

He had endured five days of mental and physical torture, yet none of these were enough to make him disclose any information regarding his team. After all, he knew how to resist an interrogation—he was _trained _to resist them. But his body could only take so much and eventually, fatigue had settled. Harry knew it was only a matter of time before he would become too weak to withstand another dose of Veritaserum or before his mind would become too vulnerable to Occlude properly. He needed to plan his escape before then.

Training had taught him that in a situation like this, there were three things that an Operator, a field member of a tactical team, should do upon capture: (1) figure out where you are, (2) find an escape route and (3) gather as much intel as you can before executing your plan of escape.

The first step was to identify your location.

The ideal way to figure out your location is to determine the initial Apparition point or Portkey landing. These places, which they call Points of Entry, are usually located in a secluded area, far away from the kidnapper's safe house. Well-concealed hideouts are typically protected by anti-Disapparition and anti-Tracking wards. The larger the perimeter of the wards, the more powerful the wizards maintaining it are. From there, memorise where you've been taken. How long did you walk in one direction? How many right or left turns did you make? If blindfolded, memorise every bump in the road, every scent in the air, and every sound carried by the wind.

Harry would no doubt have done all of those and followed standard operating procedures, except he didn't have any recollection of his transport. If his captors really did Obliviate him, there was no other choice but to start again from within his cell.

Barely able to get up from hunger and exhaustion, he forced himself to rise and shuffle towards the small window of his cell to peer out. The rain made everything grey and Harry had to look carefully to figure out the sun's position and discern any distinguishing landscape. _Wide shallow valley to the east, large rounded hill mass northwest, and a prominent ridge to due north_. There was nothing remarkable about the terrain that could give him any clue of where he was. He could be anywhere right how. For all he knew, this could have been another illusion his captors had set up to further confuse him.

Still, it was the only lead he had and it was enough for now.

He was about to slump back down on the floor when he saw something strange curling at the corner of his vision: despite the raging storm, a thin line of smoke was trailing from the shallow valley in the east and straight up to the grey clouds above. _Strange,_ he thought, _and possibly made by magic_. He tried to look harder into the rain, but he was unable to see the origin of the smoke.

Filing the information away, Harry then proceeded to the next step: finding an escape route.

This one was tougher than he anticipated, as there was nothing he could do without his wand. He had counted on the guards to not know about his wandless abilities, but was fairly surprised when he found that his cell was barred from the outside with bars and heavy bolts instead of the usual locks. No _Alohomora_ could open that.

It seemed they knew him well enough, after all.

Since the chances of escape were slim in his current condition, the most he could do was to gather as much intel as he could while being captive. There was no other choice but to wait for an opportunity to present itself.

He sat down once again on the cold wet floor and tried to conserve his energy and magic the way they were taught in training. And while he waited, he allowed his mind to drift, recalling how he had gotten into this predicament in the first place.

* * *

-:-

* * *

_Two Years Ago, DMLE_

* * *

Harry was staring at the small cedar door before him. Beside him, Ron had the same unreadable expression on his face as he too looked warily at the sign at the door. They glanced at each other with twin looks of perplexity, before looking back at the identical cards that they were both holding.

_2/F Room 217  
East Wing Corridor  
Department of Magical Law Enforcement  
Ministry of Magic_

The cards on their hands were pristine white, with only the address neatly printed in small block letters in the middle. There were no other markings on the card that could indicate whether or not they were in the correct location. They both looked back up at the door again, careful to note the large brass numbers on the door.

Yes, it _did_ say 217. They _were_ on the second floor. And they _were_ at the East Wing corridor of DMLE. But somehow, nothing could convince them that they really were at the right place.

Two weeks ago, he and Ron had been approached by a strange man who only introduced himself as Baker, a recruiter for a special division in DMLE. The man had said that his division was looking for the best of the best in the department and that they had both been selected as Candidates for the new team they were forming.

"We are looking to create a second Squad for the Division," Baker said when he approached them that day. "The Squad is currently the best team in DMLE bar none—and that is not an exaggeration. You will undergo Selection along with a few other men from DMLE and other branches of the Ministry. If you are chosen for the Second Squad, you will receive the same training as our current Operators."

The offer had come as a surprise to Harry. He and Ron were still Auror Trainees, with few months left of training before they could become full Aurors. He had never envisioned himself to be anything else other than an Auror, but Baker's offer for advanced combat training had piqued his curiosity. After all, what division could be better than the Aurors Corps?

"What exactly does this…squad do?" Harry asked. "And why haven't we heard of it before? What division are you from, anyway?"

"We can't tell you unless you pass Selection," Baker answered mysteriously. "But _if_ you do pass, you will undergo specialised training that is vastly different from what you are receiving in Auror training right now."

Baker then handed them the card with a place and time, and told them to come should they decide to go through with the Selection process. Passing Selection, he said, meant that they were the best the MLE had to offer. And that was most certainly a challenge if Harry had ever heard one.

Except, this wasn't exactly what he envisioned when he first decided to accept the challenge. He looked up again at the prominently placed plaque on the door, just below the number 217.

_Department of Magical Equipment Control_

"Is this really it?" Harry asked, frowning at the door.

He looked up and down the hall, eyeing every door along the silent corridor. It was highly unlikely that this was the MLE division they were looking for, but no other door had anything resembling a sign on them, save for the brass numbers affixed at the front of every door.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me," Ron groaned in disappointment. "I actually believed the bloke when he said they were looking for the best in the department. They must be really desperate if they've stooped this low. C'mon mate, let's just go."

"Why?" Harry asked. "What's in this department anyway?"

"Nothing," Ron answered as he began to back up, looking for all the world as if he was afraid someone would walk out and see them, or worse—_invite them in_. "Nobody ever requests to be assigned there. Dad says it's a redundant department. Dark objects go to the Aurors, Muggle artefacts go to Dad's department, and unknown magical items that are considered dangerous go to the Department of Mysteries. Anything else gets registered at Wizengamot Administration Services for classification."

Harry reluctantly followed Ron and they began to walk towards the opposite end of the hall, away from the infamous department. He looked back once at the small cedar door. It was a shame because although it seemed unlikely that such an elite group could exist within the DMLE apart from the Auror division, he secretly believed it and wanted to be a part of it. And didn't it seem rather odd that this so-called Division would go through such lengths to invite people to Selection, then have them turn back from disappointment upon learning exactly which division it was under? In fact it seemed almost as if they were discouraging people from entering…

"Hang on." Harry stopped abruptly and grabbed Ron's arm. "Look, can't we just ask if it's the right place? Maybe we just got the wrong door or something."

Ron eyed him sceptically. "And if it's the right one? I'm not about to throw three years of Auror training just to join DMEC, mate. I mean, they're not even a real MLE department. What do they even do there, rescue kneazles from trees? Search for the Queen's missing handbag?"

"I don't know," Harry murmured almost to himself. He looked at the door intently as if it was a fascinating puzzle piece. "Call it a gut feeling."

"Well…" Ron said slowly as he too looked back at the door uncertainly. "Alright, but we'll just look. If it turns out I'm right and it's not worth missing half of today's Stealth and Tracking class, you're buying me lunch."

Harry shot his best friend a grateful grin. "Thanks, Ron."

They headed back and gave the door three sharp raps. Predictably, no one answered the door, and after several more tries, they decided to just head in. Ron turned the knob and released it, one eyebrow rising when the door automatically pulled back into the room. They were expecting it to be locked.

The door opened to reveal a long narrow passage that curved slightly to the right. The hall was dark save for a dim light at the end. Harry and Ron looked at each other confusedly. It was physically impossible to fit such a long corridor in what should have been a small office, and it was obvious that complex expansion charms were involved. But why would anyone go through the trouble to charm the room into something like this?

"Well, this definitely isn't the Department of Magical Equipment Control," Harry said, looking at his friend for confirmation. "Is it?"

"I don't know," Ron replied, looking suspiciously down the dark passage. "It's definitely not DMEC, but that doesn't mean it's the one we're looking for..."

"Only one way to find out." Harry shrugged and fixed his gaze on the light at the other end.

"Oh, ugh," Ron said, exasperation colouring his voice. "I know that face."

"What?" Harry blinked. "What face?"

"The one that has 'stubborn' written all over it," Ron said. "The one you get when you have an idea in your head and don't want to let it go. Remember sixth year?"

"Hey, my hunch was right back then!" Harry protested.

"And you never let us forget it every chance you get," Ron replied with a laugh. He lit the tip of his wand with a Lumos and took a step inside the dark passageway. "Well, lets go then."

"Oi, wait for me!" Harry called after him, shuffling to catch up with his friend who was already well into the hall. Harry winced when he heard the door slam behind them, loud and foreboding, but he focused instead on what lay before them.

At the end of the long tunnel, they found Baker standing at ease in the middle of a small room.

"What the…" Harry heard his friend stifle his surprise.

"Congratulations," Baker greeted them. "You both passed the first test."

Harry looked over at Ron confusedly at first, but then just like that, their faces broke out in two huge identical grins as they let the man's words sink in.

"I knew there was something odd about the door," Harry nudged Ron while unsuccessfully trying to school his features.

"Lucky guess," Ron jabbed him back, trying to suppress his own grin.

"What's with the sign outside the door?" Harry asked curiously, remembering how they were so close to giving up just mere moments ago.

"That is our cover organization," Baker explained. "We don't call ourselves anything except the Division, but on the outside, we are DMEC. Perhaps you are familiar with some of our Operators?"

"Cover organization…" Ron trailed off, his face frowning in concentration. "NO WAY!" Ron suddenly yelped, his eyes wide. "You mean _Bernie_ from DMEC is an _Operator!_?"

"Bernie…?" Harry trailed off. He racked his brain trying to recall if he knew any Bernie working for the Ministry. There was a Bernard from their pick-up Quidditch matches during weekends, but he worked at Muggle Liaisons. And then there was Bern from the Ministry owl post but Harry doubted the man has any ability to cast any sort duelling spell, much less be an Operator. Oh and yes, and then there was a Bernie who used to be in the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol. He was one of the best rookies in the Patrol and had plans on joining the Auror Corps, but ever since his wand cracked during one of his missions, his ability to cast even the most basic spells had faltered. Rumour had it that he was still with DMLE but had to be transferred to a desk job…in another…department…_no way!_

It couldn't possibly be him…or could it?

"Bernie," Ron said again, shaking his head in disbelief, his mind apparently travelling the same line of thought as Harry's had. "I can't believe…_Bernie_ from DMEC? An Operator?"

Baker nodded and grinned at them both. "Do you remember the Rookwood case?"

How could they forget? Rookwood was suspected as being the one who killed Fred during the Battle of Hogwarts. He was the reason why Ron joined the Auror Corps in the first place. It was by pure luck that the elusive ex-Death Eater was captured. He was found in one of the rooms of the Leaky, drunk and bellowing that the whore he was with the night before stole his galleons. When he couldn't pay for his rent, the Aurors had been called in, and it was during the questioning that his Polyjuice had worn off.

It had been too good to be true that time, and apparently it was. Coincidences like that didn't just happen everyday.

"That was his handiwork." Baker said with a tinge of pride in his voice. "He drugged Rookwood and modified his memory, and then left him for the Aurors to find. Making a cover story to take him out of the Patrol with that fake splinted wand was a nightmare, but it was worth it."

"Wow," Ron exhaled. Harry couldn't help but agree.

Baker then stepped forward and gave them each a clap on the back before reaching into his robe pockets and taking out two small objects. He held out his hand, palms up, offering them two lead bullets that came from a Muggle pistol.

"These are Portkeys that will take you to the first briefing for Selection where you will meet other Candidates like you," Baker said. "Taking these will mean that you have decided to undergo Selection."

With renewed resolve, Harry stepped up to take one of the Portkeys. He took it without the slightest bit of hesitation, sliding his fingers along the smooth surface of the metal.

"Remember, if you pass, you will be a part of an elite group of individuals whose sole duty is to serve the Ministry," Baker said, offering the other Portkey to Ron. "Should you fail Selection, then you will remember nothing."

"How many men are you taking for the new team you're forming?" Ron asked.

"A Squad is usually composed of eight men," Baker answered.

"Eight, huh," Ron said, finally taking the proffered bullet from the man's hand with renewed confidence. "We can do that. Right, Harry?"

The edge of Baker's mouth quirked in a slight grin. "The Portkeys will activate at 0500 hours tomorrow. I suggest you both prepare yourselves."

Neither Ron nor Harry realised then that they should have taken the man's parting words seriously.

* * *

-:-

* * *

"Eight." Ron gulped, his eyes wide as he scanned the large briefing room of the DMEC Training Facility.

"Yeah," Harry said almost breathlessly.

The room was filled with nearly two hundred men standing around. Every one of them was waiting for the briefing to begin. Two hundred men who, at first glance, seemed to have come from different divisions of DMLE. There were men from the Magical Law Enforcement Patrol, Aurors that both Ron and Harry were familiar with from their three years of Auror training, members of the Witch Watcher Special Forces, and even a handful of Hit Wizards were also there. Everyone was talking to each other as if they were all long time friends.

There were also those who seemed completely out of place in a room full of soldiers—those who looked as if they had never received a single second of combat training. There were men that wouldn't know how to cast a single duelling spell even if their lives depended on it. That, in particular, was true of one man whom Harry knew was an exceptional scholar in wand making and wand lore. Hermione had introduced the man to him once when he was seeking answers concerning a particular wand.

There were also men who looked as if they belonged in Azkaban, rather than a training facility, which supposedly boasts of the best men in the force. Some looked as if they lived and breathed Dark Magic, and for a brief moment, Harry wondered just what kind of squad they were trying to form here.

What caught his attention, though, was the rather large group of Unspeakables standing together off on one side of the room. They were all eerily silent, all facing the front of the room, with their hands clasped loosely behind their backs. Their long black robes were billowing gently at the bottom, which in itself was a strangely mysterious sight considering the lack of flowing air in the room.

"What are they doing here?" Harry heard Ron whisper beside him, nodding towards the Unspeakables.

"I have no idea," Harry replied.

There was a low buzz of excited conversation in the room. Testosterone levels were running high and people were eyeing each other left and right, as if trying to size up the competition. Harry stood off to one side of the room with Ron, both with a slight unease. While there were younger men like them in the room, it was quite clear that the majority of the men were old enough to be veterans of the First Wizarding War. Somehow, they didn't think they could stand a chance against some of the seasoned Aurors in the force, let alone the mass of Unspeakables with their highly specialised skills.

Then Harry heard someone call his name, ringing loud and clear through the room.

"Harry Potter!"

For a split second, silence descended upon the room before bursting with renewed chatter that was twice as excited as before. Even the Unspeakables were beginning to murmur low amongst themselves.

Harry flushed with embarrassment and turned to the man who had called out his name. It was the wand lore specialist from earlier.

"Mr Burke." Harry nodded at the approaching man, trying not to wince at the unexpected attention.

"Mr Potter, how wonderful to see you again." Burke beamed and shook Harry's hand before turning to Ron to shake his hand as well. "Ah, and Mr Weasley as well. How is the lovely wife?"

"Great, thanks." Ron gave the man a small smile.

"And how is the wand, Mr Potter?" Burke asked, his eyes shining. "It was such a fascinating enigma you presented. I tried to research for similar occurrences with other wands, but I'm afraid your case is quite unique. Are you sure you won't allow me to create a treatise on it?"

"Maybe some other time, Mr Burke," Harry said evasively, used to avoiding the man's request. "There are still some things that I want to check before I can let you do that."

"Ah, pity," Burke said. "But you'll tell me when you find out, won't you?"

"Of course," Harry replied, smiling politely and knowing full well that it would never happen.

The room began to quiet down and Harry was spared further awkwardness from Burke. He saw Baker enter the room and was making his way towards the front where a small dais was set. Harry looked back to the door, expecting to see more people come in, but none did. If this was an orientation, where were the other heads of the Division? Harry was expecting the man to cast a Sonorus before addressing them, just like on his first day of Auror training where every last one of the heads of all the sub-divisions of the Auror Department felt the need to flaunt themselves to the new recruits.

That apparently was not needed as Baker began to speak in a clear voice. There were few formalities and the man went straight to the point. Harry was beginning to like him more and more.

"Welcome to Candidate Selection and Elimination, or CSAE," Baker says. "As most of you know, we have hand-picked each and every one of you from various divisions, fields and areas of expertise. From the Auror Corps, MLE Patrol, even Hit Wizards and Unspeakables, to Potions Masters, Herbalists and Healers. We have Curse Breakers, Dark Arts Specialists, scholars from different fields of the academe, and even—" the man glanced towards the back of the room where Harry and Ron were standing, and said with amusement, "—war heroes."

Harry and Ron fidgeted in embarrassment, as a few choked sniggers broke out from the group. Harry felt a sharp elbow in the side as Ron nodded towards the front of the room.

"Even former criminals, apparently," he heard Ron mutter under his breath.

Sure enough, Ron was pointing towards an unmistakable pale head at the front of the room that could only belong to Draco Malfoy. He was sitting stoically amidst a boisterous group of men who were jostling and nudging each other, whispering excitedly over what Baker was saying about the Elimination they would be undergoing in order to trim the Candidates down to a single squad. Yet despite the contrast in behaviour, Malfoy looked clearly at ease being with these men, and shaking his head amusedly every now and then.

Harry's heart nearly stopped. He'd not seen Malfoy since his trial four years ago, where Lucius Malfoy had been given the Kiss and Narcissa Malfoy had been exiled from the country. He heard that Malfoy had been given a special arrangement as well, and since then no one had seen or heard from any of the surviving Malfoys. It was as if they had disappeared from the wizarding world.

He tried looking for Malfoy for a year after the trial. At first he told himself he was just concerned and wanted to know how Malfoy was doing. But when he never found any trace of Malfoy, he began to worry. Did the Ministry do something to him, Harry had wondered. He tried contacting Narcissa Malfoy, who had decided to stay in France, but even she did not know of Malfoy's whereabouts. She had only received the occasional letter to let her know he was still alive, and that was that.

Harry had eventually given up, and that was when he decided he'd take up Shacklebolt's offer to join the Aurors. It wasn't so he could have more resources that could help in looking for Malfoy, not at all (or at least that was what he kept telling himself). Becoming an Auror really was something he wanted to do ever since he'd left Hogwarts. In fact, he'd all but forgotten about Malfoy during the three years of Auror training.

But now, there he was, looking for all the world as if he'd never left wizarding society at all. Why, Harry wondered, didn't the Prophet not publish Malfoy's return?

"He seems…different," Harry decided. There was something about Malfoy that Harry couldn't quite figure out. "Wonder what he's doing here?"

"Wouldn't be surprised if he turned out to be one of the Dark Arts Specialists," Ron said.

And there was an eerie moment when Malfoy turned slowly to look at them, as if he could feel them looking at him and somehow knew they were talking about him. Harry's breath caught as he locked eyes with the steely gaze. Harry felt as if time had stopped—and he _knew _what that felt like. It was the same feeling he had had during Third Year right at that moment before the Time Turner activated, taking him and Hermione several hours back in time. It felt as if both forever and no time at all had passed. Then Malfoy broke eye contact, releasing his hypnotic hold on Harry, and turned back to the front of the room as if nothing had happened.

Mortified at being caught, Harry followed suit to listen to Baker, who was still going on about the CSAE.

"Some of you have years of training and experience under your belt, while others have never been in a real duel at all," Baker continued. "These, however, will not matter. You will receive the best training in _all_ fields. Everyone will advance based on their merits alone. There will be no helping friends, but no sabotaging enemies either. You'll all be working together in the end, and in order for you to succeed, you will need the trust of the people selected along with you."

"Ron," Harry whispered to his friend. "What would you do if Malfoy got past Selection and you had to be in the same squad as him?"

"Don't even joke about something like that, Harry," Ron hissed, his face scrunching in distaste. "It's not funny."

Harry, however, could not shake off the idea that was beginning grow in his mind: What if Malfoy _was_ good enough to pass Selection?

"With that gentlemen, we now proceed to the first phase of Selection."

* * *

-:-

* * *

"The first phase of the Elimination is an endurance and survival test," Harry remembered being told earlier that day by a man who was introduced as Alton, one of the senior cadres in the Division and a member of the First Squad. "You will be given exactly forty-eight hours to go through here—" Alton swept a hand towards the looming forest behind him "—and find the camp on the other side. A normal man will take up to three and a half days to go through, but you will only be given two.

"You will have no map, food or water ration. We will take all wands and magical devices we can find. We won't disallow you from using magic, however. Your own magical abilities, wandless or otherwise, are at your disposal. If you're hungry, find your own food. If you get lost, then you'll have to double back and _then_ make up for lost time. But you have to remember that this is still essentially a race. Only half of those who reach the camp within forty-eight hours can proceed with Selection."

It had all sounded so easy when they were first Portkeyed to the entry point of the forest. Harry was even pleased that he would have the advantage of using his wandless abilities, although his current repertoire was admittedly limited to shielding spells and minor healing charms.

Ron, in particular, had looked excited, and it was only when they were given the parting words that Harry understood why.

"Good luck, gentlemen," their cadre had said. "And oh, watch out for the dragons."

They were in the Dragon Reserve in Romania where Ron's brother worked as a dragon tamer. Ron had been here enough times that he probably knew his way enough to get through easily. They had ribbed each other, promising to bring back dragon dung to the loser, but deep down, Harry felt a bit relieved that his friend would have an advantage over the other Candidates too.

When they had been given the signal to begin, Harry's jaw had literally dropped when three of the Unspeakables Disapparated on the spot. He didn't know anyone capable of Disapparating wandlessly, never mind that they were able to do it _at will_. In fact, Harry remembered a course in Auror training that covered how to handle wild magic. Only young children who had not learned to control their magic, and wizards who were said to be so desperate that they were at the brink of insanity, could inadvertently use wild magic to Disapparate.

And it had been at that point that Harry finally understood the kind of wizards he was up against. They really _did_ mean it when they said they were recruiting the best and most powerful wizards for their team.

So Harry had spent the entire day running through the forest, trying to get ahead in the game. He didn't know how the other Candidates were faring. With the directive that no one was allowed to help anyone out, everyone had gone their own ways once inside the forest. Even he and Ron took different paths.

The general direction of the camp was due east, that much he knew. He followed the sun during the morning while on the lookout for any source of water, and at past noon, he was already walking with the sun behind him. He still hadn't found any water source. His mind wandered back to five years ago when he was hiding in the Forest of Dean with Hermione. He thought he had had it bad then, but compared to this, those days were the height of luxury, with the magical tent and all.

Finally giving in to his exhaustion, Harry slumped down to rest against one of the trees, throat parched and feet aching. He didn't know how far along he'd gone, but he knew he was on the right track and had made good progress. What he didn't know was if he was ahead of half of the other Candidates or not. Had some of them already reached the camp, he wondered. He supposed it was impossible for most to reach the camp within the day, but he wouldn't be surprised if those Disapparating Unspeakables were there by now.

Harry closed his eyes and was debating with himself whether he should rest a while or push forward when a shadow passed over him. In a flash, he was on his feet, crouching in a defensive stance with a wandlessly cast Protego in front of him.

"Didn't take you for the jumpy sort, Potter," he heard a familiar voice drawl.

Draco Malfoy then stepped out from behind one of the trees, smirking at Harry's flustered face. Harry groaned at the thought of being caught in such a state, by his former rival no less! Fifty-one thousand acres of land and over two hundred Candidates, and it just had to be Malfoy who he ran into.

"Well, when the Cadre told us to watch out for dragons, he didn't tell us which kind," Harry bit back before straightening up and allowing the shield charm to melt away.

To Harry's surprise, Malfoy gave a small laugh saying, "You should probably be wary of both."

Harry had heard Malfoy laugh enough times for it to be so disturbingly familiar, as it was almost always directed at him and usually accompanied with a sneer. Of the many times he'd heard it, he would never have imagined Malfoy's laugh to sound so…nice. Harry blinked and startled himself when he ran his previous thought back in his head. He decided he was probably too tired to make sense of anything.

They both sat in silence, with Harry partially thankful for the company. At least he now knew for certain that he was on the right track. Well, that or they were both completely lost. Malfoy, who was sitting a few feet away from him, looked nearly as tired as Harry felt. His usually immaculate hair was damp with sweat and clinging to his face, and his cloak was torn and caked with mud. To say it was weird seeing Malfoy looking like that was an understatement.

Malfoy then took out something from the pack he was carrying: it was a canteen of water. Harry, acutely aware of his own parched throat, nearly whimpered in envy as Malfoy twisted the cap off and began to drink. He couldn't help but watch with burning _want_ as Malfoy drank slowly and deeply. Harry stared as Malfoy's Adam's apple bobbed up and down with every gulp, with water dribbling from the side of his mouth and down his pale throat. And when he was done drinking, Malfoy emptied the remaining water over his head to refresh himself. Harry's mouth went dry as water ran down Malfoy's face, drenching his hair and soaking his shirt. Then Malfoy shook the water from his hair and turned to smirk at Harry as if the man knew he'd been watching all along.

Harry cursed under his breath and scowled to cover his embarrassment at being caught. He knew Malfoy had done that to spite him, knowing that Harry had not found a water source yet. Some days he wished he knew how to cast a wandless stinging hex.

"That was refreshing," Malfoy announced. "I think with an hour's rest I could start hiking again and reach the camp with several hours to spare."

"Wanker," Harry said as he turned away from Malfoy. It was pure torture to see the other man still dripping with water.

"You know, it's not really that hard to find," Malfoy said, his voice unexpectedly soft and almost like a whisper.

Harry's head snapped back to look incredulously at Malfoy. Was Malfoy actually giving him a hint? Harry frowned at the thought. But they weren't supposed to share any information. For one thing, if they offer any kind of help they might end up with their head on the chopping block. And the other thing was, well, it was Malfoy, after all. Harry just couldn't fathom why Malfoy, of all people, would help him. Maybe it was a trap.

"Of course, I can't tell you _exactly_ where it is. This is Elimination, after all."

Harry waited expectantly for the '_but_' he knew was coming, although it never came. Then to Harry's surprise, Malfoy pulled out a silver cigarette lighter from his pocket and began clicking it. Harry thought it looked a lot like Dumbledore's Put-Outer, except it seemed nothing more than an ordinary Muggle lighter.

"Is that…?" Harry asked, not exactly sure how to ask the question of how or even _why_ Malfoy would possess a Muggle device.

"A Muggle lighter? Ten points for the acute observation." There was a hint of amusement in Malfoy's sarcasm.

Then he began to click the thing again.

_Click, click, click, click, click._

"But why would you…?" Harry began to ask then shook his head. "Never mind." He wasn't really interested if Malfoy had developed a thing for Muggle devices. Harry tried to ignore Malfoy's presence again, but the irritating sound coming from the lighter was making it hard for Harry to ignore him.

"It's not really that far," Malfoy insisted, breaking the silence once again. "Maybe you should look for it."

Harry snorted. Malfoy was mocking him, he was sure of it. And Harry would have flipped him off had he not seen the microscopic jerk of Malfoy's head to the left, towards the deeper part of the forest. Harry blinked. Was Malfoy trying to tell him something?

Malfoy toyed with his Muggle lighter again. _Click, click, click_.

The sound was beginning to grate on Harry's nerves as he tried hard to ignore his parched throat. That, coupled with the mind game that Malfoy seemed to be playing, and Harry was ready to throttle the git.

_Click, click, click, click, click._

Fuck him, Harry thought, looking towards Malfoy furiously. Fuck him and his little mind games. Fuck Malfoy and the goddamned clicking of his—_wait!_ Harry's body tensed and he shot upright as everything _clicked_ into place. The directional nods. The _clicks_ of the lighter. Harry began to count them.

_Click, click, click, click, click._ Then it stopped, only to begin again.

Five clicks. Five miles.

Harry's eyes widened and he turned to see Malfoy give him a smirk that clearly said, "Took you long enough."

"I…yeah," Harry stammered, not really sure if he got Malfoy's message correctly. "Maybe I should go look for it."

"Maybe you should," Malfoy nodded. He then began packing his belongings and stood up, ready to head in the opposite direction. "I'll see you on the other side, Potter."

At that point, Harry was already too busy going crazy with thirst to think about whether Malfoy was only having him on or not. Besides, why would Malfoy try to hide the fact that he was passing information to Harry if it was only to give a false trail? Before heading towards the direction Malfoy indicated, Harry couldn't help but glance at the retreating back of his former enemy.

What an enigma, he thought.

* * *

-:-

* * *

"Where do you think he was all those years?" Harry asked Ron as they sat at the back of the training room together, examining the items on each of their desks.

"Who knows?" Ron replied, picking up another small cylindrical-shaped object from his desk. "What do you think this is for?" Ron asked, holding it up to Harry.

Harry eyed the weird pieces of metal in front of him. It was already two weeks into Selection and more than two thirds of the Candidates had been eliminated. The endurance test alone had taken out half of them, as most didn't expect that they would undergo Elimination on the first day. Two days after the endurance test, Harry heard from Charlie that he and a bunch of Rangers were still scouring for eight men who got lost in the forest, and a severed finger had been found near the northern part of the forest where a Norwegian Ridgeback was nesting.

It didn't surprise Harry that most of those who got through were from the Department of Mysteries and the DMLE. These men had endured similar training before from their respective departments, though Harry had to admit that the lack of a controlled environment made Selection twice as challenging as the ones in Auror training. Harry was surprised, though, that some of the more timid wizards, including Burke, had passed that part of Elimination as well.

And then of course, there was Malfoy.

There had been no talk of the Malfoys in the wizarding world since the Death Eater trials; four years later Malfoy turned up as part of a select group of individuals. Harry couldn't help but wonder what exactly Malfoy had been doing during the last few years.

Harry looked at the desk two rows in front of him where Malfoy was sitting. It nearly felt like Potions class all over, except instead of Crabbe and Goyle, Malfoy was flanked by the same raucous bunch of blokes from the beginning of the Selection, only now, less than half of them remained.

"Mate, look sharp," Harry heard Ron say as he felt an elbow dig at his side. One of their senior cadres had come into the room and was holding a Muggle weapon.

"This is a test of your knowledge of Muggle combat weapons," the cadre announced. "On your desks are various Muggle rifles that have already been fieldstripped, which you may use for practice. Your task today is to assemble and fire a Muggle weapon…in under fifteen seconds."

A chorus of curses went through the room. Aside from the physical and magical drills they had, they would sometimes be tested with their knowledge of Muggle techniques such as picking locks and using Muggle gadgets. Ron was one of the few who got excited each time.

"When you are ready, you may proceed to the shooting room next door," the cadre continued, ignoring the random protests. Then he turned to the group around Malfoy, who were all looking smug and self-satisfied all of a sudden. "I assume the Hit Wizards will not need practice? Good, you may all proceed to the next room."

"Bloody hell, Malfoy's a Hit Wizard?" Ron hissed in Harry's ear as the group in front of them got up and began to shuffle towards the door. "No wonder he kept passing all the Eliminations. Did you know that, mate?"

"I had no idea," Harry whispered back, his eyes picking out Malfoy from the crowd. Was that why no one had head from him for four years? And was that why he was so good at this? "You know, I've been wondering about that day when we had the endurance test. I didn't even notice him creep up on me."

"Well, we know why now. He's probably used to that sort of thing, running around chasing after criminals," Ron concluded. He picked up a cam pin and tried unsuccessfully to fit it into a hole.

"Hey Ron," Harry said after a while. "What would you do if Malfoy passed Selection and you had to be in the same squad as him?"

"I'd rather not have him in my squad," Ron answered automatically then frowned. "Do you think he'll pass?"

"Maybe?" Harry shrugged. "Who would you want in your squad?"

"Aside from you?" Ron asked. Then he subtly jerked his thumb to a dark haired wizard on the left side of the room. He was assembling his weapon with precise movements as if he already knew the weapon inside out. "That's Seth di Mezzo, an Unspeakable. They call him Spring Breeze because it's rumoured that it's the only thing his mark would feel before they get hit with a final curse."

"A marksman." Harry regarded at the man with one raised eyebrow. Then he turned to look at a wizard with sandy blond hair three desks behind the first man. "How about him?"

The man was obviously flirting with the Unspeakable seated beside him, who was looking more and more uncomfortable by the minute. Then suddenly, the Unspeakable smiled and relaxed. He discreetly looked around to see if anyone was watching them before switching his completed rifle with the disassembled pieces on the blond man's desk. The blond man beamed and gave the Unspeakable a meaningful smile. Ron's jaw nearly dropped at what they had just seen. Then the blond man saw him gawking and gave them both a conspiratorial wink.

"Roan Hunter aka Angler," Harry said with a grin. "He's an Auror trained internationally and is only a year younger than us. Excellent in stealth and disguise and can infiltrate any place with either magical or Muggle means. Rumoured to be gay but is actually painfully straight. They said he could reel anyone in, man or woman, and once even a banshee, hook line and sinker."

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "He'd be great at collecting intel."

They lapsed into silence as they continued to work on their weapons before Harry spoke again. "What do you think Malfoy's specialty is?"

Ron gave him a weird look. "You're not about to start stalking Malfoy again are you?"

"What? No!" Harry exclaimed a little too loudly, and then quickly ducked his head when everyone turned to them. "I was just curious," he whispered.

"Of course you are." Ron clearly didn't believe him. "But how long do you think he's been a Hit Wizard?"

"Longer than you've been in Auror training," came a reply from above them. Startled, both men looked up from their desks to see that Malfoy had already returned from the shooting room holding his own Muggle weapon, completely assembled. "Potter you left a firing pin out, and Weasel, I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to point the muzzle at your face."

Ron's face reddened, knowing that their conversation had been overheard by Malfoy himself. Harry pursed his lips when he found the firing pin and began disassembling his weapon once again.

"Also, I'd take Count if I were you," he said pointing to a man two desks behind them, whom they know as Damon Knight. "They say he can bring any man back from the brink of death. They nicknamed him Count Dracula when he was still a Healer at St. Mungo's because they thought he turned his patients into vampires just so they wouldn't die. He's also a former Auror, Curse Breaker and Quidditch player. He has all the connections you'll need." Then Malfoy gave them both a superior smirk before heading back to his desk.

"I still wouldn't want him on my squad," muttered Ron, glaring at Malfoy's retreating back.

At the training's end, only two and a half dozen Candidates were left. Predictably, one of them was Malfoy.

* * *

-:-

* * *

"This is it then," Ron said excitedly from his seat on Harry's left side. "Final interview before we get in."

There were now only twelve people left and it was the final interview before they announce who would be part of the eight man team that would form the Second Squad in the Division.

Throughout the four weeks of Elimination, they had taken a lot of physical fitness and magical aptitude drills and they were slowly eliminated one by one. Then at the end of each day, they would be made to sit through psychological exams.

"Just a few questionnaires." Alton, their senior cadre, would always have a weird smile before giving the exam. "This is untimed and there are no right or wrong answers. Just relax and answer as best as you can."

It was the same questions every time, but phrased differently each time to check if their answers were consistent. Some questions have an obvious point of uncovering paranoia and delusions, such as: _Do you think there are inferni after you? Do you hear the voice of Merlin in your head? Do you carry a bezoar with you wherever you go?_ But there were a few obscure questions that baffled Harry as well, such as _Does your urine have a slight greenish colour?_ It was only after all the psychological exams were done that Harry asked the cadre what that question was for.

"A slight greenish urine would be a reaction to Aconite in your body," Alton had said. "Also known as monkshood or wolfsbane, the main ingredient of a Wolfsbane potion. We just wanted to know if we have any unregistered werewolf in the program."

Harry didn't think anyone was ever eliminated from Selection because of the psychological exam. But he had assumed everyone was sane enough not to hear Merlin's voice in their heads.

"I wonder if we'll get in?" Harry asked with a slight apprehension.

"You're actually worried?" Ron turned to look at him, shocked. "Why would they even turn you down? You're Harry Potter."

"Exactly," Malfoy's voice came from Harry's right side. "Being Harry bloody Potter would make him pretty useless if he were to be part of a covert team, wouldn't it?"

They were sitting side by side, waiting in the hall outside the interview room. There were only the three of them left and they didn't know which among those who had already been interviewed had been accepted.

"Still, there are eight in a team and twelve of us left," Ron said, leaning over Harry to talk to Malfoy. "Do you really think they'll take Connelly or Allen over him?"

Malfoy smirked. "I'll be sure to tell them that when they make the cut and you don't."

The thing about spending weeks of gruelling training day in and day out was that one couldn't help but form a bond with the people who go through the same thing. It was the type of bond that can only be formed from nearly dying of fatigue and exhaustion, hours and hours of painstakingly perfecting a spell or potion, and mutual hate towards their drillmasters. And as the group became smaller and smaller, it was inevitable that friendships would spark, or at the very least former animosities would fade with these shared experiences.

The door suddenly opened and Connelly stepped out, halting their conversation. He was the last of the group of Hit Wizards that used to always surround Malfoy at the beginning of Selection.

Connelly's eyes immediately locked with Malfoy's and a quick shake of his head said everything that needed to be said. But before he could approach them to say anything more, a uniformed witch appeared to escort him out of the hall.

"Excuse me, sir, you're not allowed to go through there." The witch laid one hand by Connelly's elbow while gesturing to the other side of the corridor with a sweeping hand. When Connelly didn't budge, she grasped him firmly in what Harry could see was a bruising hold and said with a forced smile, "This way sir."

With one last look at Malfoy, Connelly sighed and allowed himself to be escorted out.

"What the hell was that?" Ron asked confusedly, his eyes trained at the two figures moving towards the other end corridor.

"He didn't get in. They didn't let him in." Malfoy's eyes were narrowed as he murmured as if to himself. "The fucking bastards."

Harry glanced sideways at Malfoy. He saw Malfoy's knuckles turn nearly white with his fists clenched tightly at his side. As a fellow Hit Wizard, Harry could understand why Malfoy would want him in the team. Connelly was quite good—good enough to be part of the twelve remaining Candidates, at least. But like Ron said, he wouldn't really bank on Connelly making the cut. So why was Malfoy so furious about the result?

"Maybe he just isn't cut out for it?" Harry said sympathetically.

Malfoy swivelled in his chair so fast that Harry nearly leapt back. Malfoy's usually light grey eyes were ablaze and dark with anger.

"Didn't you see him? He was holding his left arm." Malfoy's voice turned low and dangerous. "They eliminated him because his uncle was a suspected Death Eater. Yet it was never proven as his uncle disappeared long before the Final Battle at Hogwarts."

"But that would mean—" Harry frowned, his gaze slipping to Malfoy's left forearm where he knew a faded Dark Mark was concealed under the sleeve of his training robes.

"Yes," Malfoy said curtly. "And I'm willing to bet my entire Gringotts' vault they've never seen the real thing before."

Malfoy stood up and pushed back the sleeve of his training robes from his left forearm. Then he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt underneath and rolled the sleeve up, exposing the skull and snake tattoo on his left arm. Harry heard Ron's choked gasp and refrained from gaping at Malfoy's audacity.

Then Malfoy began to march towards the interview room just as the same witch from before called out the next Candidate for interview.

"Malfoy, you're up."

Ron and Harry stared speechlessly as Malfoy stepped defiantly into the interview room with his exposed left arm swinging casually at his side. Malfoy had definitely come a long way from the snotty little brat that Harry knew at Hogwarts. Of course he was still the same annoying git with a cruel sense of humour and a propensity for riling up his friends and getting under his skin. But it was tempered with compassion for those he care about, which he did his best to try and conceal, and a sort of cynical wisdom that could only have come from surviving a war.

In that moment, Harry felt strangely proud of the man Draco Malfoy had become.

"Hey Ron," Harry nudged his friend. His gaze was trained at the closed door, and he wondered what was happening inside the interview room. "What would you do if Malfoy passed Selection and you had to be in the same squad as him?"

Ron frowned before answering earnestly. "I guess it wouldn't be so bad. Having someone like him on the team, that is."

* * *

cont'd


	2. Chapter 2

_Present Time, Unknown Location_

* * *

Harry tried to cast another wandless unlocking charm on the door. Seeing as the door was actually _barred_ from the outside and not locked, the fact that it didn't work shouldn't have surprised him.

Harry was trying to gather enough magic to cast a wandless Levitation Charm when he heard the sound of several boots marching across a stone floor. He immediately knew he'd be having visitors that day; the sound grew louder and louder as it approached his cell. He retreated to the back of the room, closed his eyes and acted as if he was asleep on the small pallet that served as his bed. The footsteps stopped right in front of his cell and a few seconds later, there was a sound of rusty metal groaning in protest as the heavy bars on his cell door were lifted.

"Potter!" a man with a gruff voice barked. "Ready for another round?"

Harry didn't answer and pretended to sleep, but allowed his eyes to open in tiny slits to watch two men enter. One was large and bulky, while the other was short and stocky.

_Two men, _Harry counted._ Fatty is wandless, but Shorty has a wand. Spruce, seven and a half inches. Stubbly and poorly crafted. Definitely not made by Ollivander. I can take them!_

A shiver of adrenaline coursed through his body as he mentally plotted his attack. He needed surprise and dexterity, he decided. He had only one shot at getting this right, and considering his inability to unlock his cell door, this might be his only chance to escape. He would deal with how to contact his team once he got outside.

"I bet he'll talk now," Shorty jeered. "Oi, Potter, we have someone special coming over just for you."

Fatty guffawed as he walked over to Harry. "You should really give it up, you know. You're only making it hard for yourself."

Fatty gave Harry an experimental kick as if to wake him up. Harry didn't bother to block the blow, but instead clutched his side and groaned, acting as if he was in pain.

"Not so powerful now, are you Potter?" Shorty continued to taunt him. "Just give them up; you'll all be dead anyway."

"Actually," Fatty corrected his partner. "One of `ems already dead."

Harry stilled. It couldn't be true.

Fatty apparently saw his reaction. "Ah, so you're awake then. Well, it's true. Saw it with me own eyes, I did."

Four weeks ago, their team of six, composed of highly trained operators and seasoned men from various divisions of DMLE, had been assigned to extract a package from an experimental magic facility. The place was an underground sector in the Ministry, run by former Unspeakables and funded by someone high up in the Ministry of Magic.

Assignments like these would be normally given to the Auror Department. However, their target location was within the Department of Mysteries, inside the Ministry of Magic—it meant that they would be stealing from their own. With the nature of the mission being highly classified and needing complete confidentiality, giving the assignment to the Aurors had been out of the question. The Ministry could not afford to have a paper trail from the case that the Auror Department would undoubtedly file.

And so, the Squad had been called in. This was, after all, what they did. What they were _trained_ to do.

Except the Alpha team was already away on a mission.

There was no way to do the mission, seeing as Harry's team were still in training and not yet full Operators. But timing for the assignment was critical, and they only had a very small window of opportunity to execute the mission. The Minister of Magic himself had insisted that they take on the assignment and the senior officers had no choice but to put them on the mission.

Naturally, the team had been unprepared to do the job. They were in the middle of a training exercise when their team had been called in for the extraction.

"Best of luck," Baker had said right before they had Portkeyed to the location. "We'll be here to coordinate with your point of contact—that would be Alton—and the retrieval of the package. But the extraction from the location itself will be all up to you."

The extraction of the package had gone without any hitch, but delivering it was another matter. When they had reached the rendezvous point, they'd found out that Alton had been compromised.

That was when all hell had broken loose and Harry was caught.

Harry turned his face away as Fatty crouched down and leaned close. He felt the stench of the man's breath hovering over his face as he whispered gruffly in Harry's ear.

"We already found them, you see," Fatty jeered. "It was just a matter of time before we could round `em up."

Harry clenched his fist, preparing to smash the man's nose into his skull.

"Oh, you think we're lying?" Shorty laughed. "I'll give you proof. One of your operators is Weasley."

Harry grew cold. Was it true? Had they really captured the rest of his team? No one knew their identities. _No one_. There was absolutely no way for anyone to know that Ron was a part of the team unless…unless they really had captured Ron.

"And as we speak, someone is already heading towards his house to meet his wife and lovely children."

It was too much and Harry couldn't take any more of it.

With a cry of fury, Harry rolled to the side and leapt up from the floor while kicking Fatty to the ground. Shorty squeaked and a Stunning Spell erupted from his wand towards Harry. Harry threw up one arm and erected a Shield Charm wandlessly, and the Stunner bounced back to the caster, rendering him useless.

Fatty got up. "Why you!" he shouted, and barrelled towards Harry, head bent down like a bull in rage. But Harry agilely leapt out of the way, and using the man's momentum to increase the impact, he pushed the man towards the wall. There was a sickening crunch as skull hit solid stone, and Fatty collapsed to the ground.

Harry was moving towards Shorty, intending to take his wand when he was suddenly flung to the other side of his cell, hitting the wall. He groaned in pain and saw a third man's shadow hovering by the door.

"I'm afraid I can't let you walk out of here, Potter."

Harry's head jerked at the familiar voice. "You!" he cried incredulously when he saw the man.

The man sent a hex towards Harry, who immediately blocked it with a Shield Charm to rebound back to the man. The man leapt out of the way and the hex connected with the cell's door, splintering it into a thousand pieces.

"Nice try, Potter," the man with the familiar voice said. "But I don't think that will work with this."

The man cast a Stunner, one that was more precise and powerful than Shorty's fumbling spell. Harry immediately cast another wandless _Protego_, this time with a tinge of pink instead of the usual transparent blue colour of the spell.

"Impressive," the man said. "But even with your trademark spell, a wandless Shield Charm still won't be strong enough to block this next one."

"Why are you doing this?" Harry asked, trying to keep his voice steady.

"Orders," was the man's only reply.

The last memory Harry had before he blacked out was his shield charm shattering as it was penetrated by another Stunning spell, cast by one of his own teammates.

* * *

-:-

* * *

_A Year Ago_

* * *

"No, I refuse to do it."

Harry resisted the urge to hex Malfoy on the spot. They'd been at it the entire afternoon and Malfoy was being a giant prat, as usual.

"See, I'm not the only one," Ron said before pleading. "You can't possibly be serious about this, Harry."

Ron and Malfoy were sitting face to face—or rather, the rest of the team had forced them to sit there and refused to let them move until the training exercise was over.

"I'm dead serious, Ron," Harry said sternly. "If you and Malfoy won't do it, none of us will be going back to the house tonight."

"Oi, Potter, speak for yourself," one of their teammates called out. "I'd Body-Bind them both here if it meant we could go home early."

The rest of the team chuckled in approval.

At the end of the Selection, no one had really been surprised that Malfoy made the final cut. While his performance during Selection was beyond exemplary, Harry suspected that what sealed his spot on the team was his final interview with the board.

Afterwards, six men were gathered in a briefing room and they were officially declared as part of the new team. They would be the secondary Squad, their senior officers had said. They would be the ones to take on an assignment whenever team Alpha was away on a mission.

"This is your line-up and I will be assigning you partners," Baker had said during their first briefing, looking each of them in the eye from across a large meeting desk, as if daring them to object even before they began. "Alright. Di Mezzo, you'll be the designated Shooter. Your role is to provide the team cover and additional firepower with rapid accurate spells and counter-spells fired from a certain distance.

"Your partner is Knight," Baker then turned to address the older man. "As a veteran Healer, your primary role is to provide aid when any member of your team goes down. You will also be the team's resident Potioneer."

Seth gave his older partner a friendly wave from across the table, which Damon immediately shot down with a frown.

"Next is Potter. You have the best set of defensive skills in the group and can do some of them wandlessly. Your wandless Healing Charms will also come in handy, so I suggest you enhance them so you can be the team's alternate Healer. You will be partnered with Malfoy, who specialises in offensive non-verbal spells. You two will be the Attack and Defence core of the group. I suggest you do all your training together from now on."

At the twin looks of horror on both Harry and Malfoy's face, sniggering erupted from the rest of the team, which they unsuccessfully hid behind loud coughs.

"That would leave you, Hunter and Weasley, as partners." Baker gestured to the final pair of men. "Since only six of you passed the selection, both of you will have double roles. Hunter, you will be the team's Recon Specialist and Retriever. You will be assigned mostly covert missions that require stealth and infiltration. Weasley, you will be the team's Tactician and Communicator. You will head and devise all operations, and if a mission requires less than five operators, you will remain at the tactical HQ and track the team's progress."

"Any questions—" Damon's hand immediately shot up, "—that do not involve switching partners?" The hand immediately lowered back down.

"Who is the team's leader?" Harry turned to look at Malfoy who had been silent until that moment.

"Weasley is," Baker replied. "As he is also the team's Tactician."

Ron caught Harry's eyes and mouthed, _'Me?'_ Harry gave him an encouraging grin and glanced back at Malfoy, who was uncharacteristically nodding his head in approval. Strange, Harry thought. He would have expected Malfoy to at least challenge Baker's decision.

"Anything else? Alright, that's it gentlemen," Baker said when no one raised any more concerns. "You can now head to your designated residence and I'll see you tomorrow. Training starts at 0400 hours."

Everyone breathed a collected sigh of relief as soon as Baker left the room. They had just spent four weeks going through Selection and they were about to spend the next two years in the Operator Training Course, starting tomorrow. But somehow, none of them felt weary at having to go through training again. They were still high from passing Selection.

"I can't believe you're partnered with Malfoy!" Ron exclaimed.

Harry groaned as he got up from his seat. "Ugh, neither can I," he said without really meaning it. It was mostly out of habit than anything else to complain about Malfoy.

"I believe I have the worse end of the deal in this partnership, Potter," Malfoy informed him, brushing past Harry on his way out of the room.

"Not true," Harry objected, catching up to his new partner and exiting the room. "I have to share a room with you now. Nothing could possibly be worse than that."

"Nice, Red," Roan said, circling an arm around Ron's neck as they too began to file out of the room to walk towards their trainee residence. "We'll have a blast being partners. And roommates!"

Ron groaned and extracted himself from his partner's enthusiastic grip. "I'm sure we will," he said with a wry grin. "But why are you calling me Red? In fact, why does _everyone_ call me Red?"

"It's ritual," Damon said, clapping him on the back as he walked past. "Everyone gets a nickname sooner or later."

"Why Red, then?" Ron asked confusedly.

"Because, darling, you are a natural red," Roan said, leering at his partner unabashedly. "Down _there_."

Ron's face immediately flared to match his hair. "How did you know?" he squeaked, his voice two octaves higher than usual.

"Ah, the joys of communal showers." Seth sighed dreamily and everyone sniggered.

"Well, what about Malfoy, then?" Ron asked, trying to turn the conversation away from him. "I've never heard of his nickname. I bet it's just as embarrassing."

Malfoy snorted and kept walking ahead of them.

"His former team used to call him D," Damon said, casting an uneasy glance towards the blond.

"How unoriginal," Ron said with a grimace. "You call him D because it's his name?"

There was an uneasy pause as everyone tried to look away. Clearly, no one wanted to answer him. It was finally Malfoy, who was already waiting for them in front of the large fireplace that would take them to their residence, who finally spoke.

"D is for Death. As in Death Eater."

With that, Malfoy activated the Floo and stepped in. There was an awkward pause as they watched Malfoy disappear in the green flames.

"Well, what about me, then?" Harry said, breaking the uneasy silence. "What nickname do I get?"

"Don't worry, Potter," Seth said with a grin, and the group began to talk easily again. "We'll find one for you before our training is over. I promise."

They'd been in training for over a year now and Harry still hadn't been given a nickname, but not for lack of trying. They tried giving him different names but nothing had stuck long enough.

During that time, they were taught not just spells, but entire skillsets that would set them apart from the rest of the DMLE operators and officers. Circumventing Veritaserum, throwing off Imperius (which Harry was already adept at, thank you very much), and even capably using wands whose allegiance still lie with their original owners were some of the basic training they received. Coming from different branches of the Ministry, they also had to make up for skills that were taught specifically to each sub-department.

Seth, as a former Unspeakable, had to be taught to use non-permanent and non-lethal duelling spells employed by Aurors and Hit Wizards when taking down a target. He also had to learn to work through the more basic potions first, instead of using the more advanced, yet unstable, ones the Department of Mysteries employed when doing experiments.

Roan, Harry, Ron and Damon all had Auror training and were adept at advanced magical combat, practical defence and some methods of criminal investigation. They did lack, however, the finesse of espionage that was taught to Hit Wizards and Unspeakables.

Malfoy was surprisingly skilled at most aspects and hardly needed as much training as his other teammates. His non-verbal magic skills impressed everyone in the team, as he only needed to speak a spell aloud once before being able to cast it non-verbally. He was also the best Legilimens and Occlumens in the team, and Seth was the only one who could Occlude him in training.

His downfall, however, was during team exercises. Being a former Hit Wizard, he was used to working alone. During the first few months of training, Damon had had to patch up most of the team whenever they had room-clearing exercises.

In this exercise, a certain sequence was required to successfully clear a room full of dangerous wizards. Speed, surprise and precision casting were the keys to success and survival in a clearing. These were the fundamental requirements of a good operator that many had taken for granted.

"_Three…two…one...EXECUTE, EXECUTE!"_

They were lined up just outside the door, and as soon as Ron shouted the signal to begin the clearing, Malfoy blasted the door open and rushed in.

Assessing quickly which side of the room had heavier threats, Malfoy rushed in and quickly turned left towards the side with more threats, casting spell after spell and taking down as many hostile individuals as he could. Harry was right at his heels, doing the same thing, but towards the opposite direction.

It was their standard technique in clearing a room. Malfoy was always the first to enter a room, followed by Harry. And the next man would come in, and the next man, alternating between left and right, and taking down whichever wizards their teammates missed. They would circle the room, sticking to the walls and taking down all hostile individuals while moving at full speed, and casting spell after spell after spell until all targets were taken out.

"_Reducto!_"

"_Expelliarmus!_"

"_Petrificus Totalus!_"

"_Impedimentia!_"

"_Flipendo!_"

One by one, the threat dummies in the room fell with the barrage of spells. Harry's wand was always trained towards the front as he rushed into the room. He never bothered with the threats coming from the side, as he trusted the person behind him to take care of that. And as Harry hexed the final wizard dummy in front of him, he came face to face with Malfoy. This was usually the signal that they had already circled and secured the room. At this point, most if not all of the threats had been taken down as well.

"This side clear," Harry called out.

"This side clear," Malfoy acknowledged.

And as the rest of the team responded with their own 'All clear!', a huge grin broke out on Harry's face and mouthed, '_Congrats'_ to Malfoy. An answering smirk played at the corner of his partner's mouth.

It was the first time they had got through a six-man room clearing without anyone getting accidentally hexed.

This had been Malfoy's weakest skill as his instinct was to take down the entire room by himself. He would often cast hexes towards hostile targets across the room when there were no longer threats on his side. However, since another operator on that side was already casting a spell on the same target, it would usually end with one of the spells not hitting the hostile and instead hitting a teammate.

It took half a year before he was able to curb that instinct, but he had never really perfected any team exercise save for two-man clearings with his partner. That had been easy enough. The lead man, which was usually Malfoy, would rush low and cast offensive spells for all he's worth, while Potter would be over his shoulder raising shield barriers and taking down anyone he'd missed.

Malfoy had since grown better with working with the rest of the team, but not everything was about casting spells and clearing rooms.

To strengthen their team's bond, they were tasked to learn as much as they could about each other, including the members of their families, their favourite Quidditch teams, and right down to the colour of their favourite underpants. Ron and Malfoy, however, couldn't even get past the first task, which was to call each other by their first names.

And this was what they had been doing for half the day.

"Just say it once and so we can be done with it." Harry rubbed his face wearily, looking back and forth between his partner and his friend.

"Oh, alright. Fine," Malfoy said, finally giving in. He took a deep breath before saying, very faintly, "Ron."

Malfoy immediately made a face, as if saying the name left a bad taste in his mouth.

"No, I don't think it'll ever work," Ron said, looking every bit as pained as Malfoy was.

"How about…Ronald," Draco offered, trying the other name. It was more successful this time, but his face still showed a twinge of distaste.

"Hmm…it might work," Harry said, tilting his head. "You'll just need to practise using it."

Harry caught the look that Ron and Malfoy shared—a silent agreement that neither would go through with it and that "practising" would entail using it in front Harry and _only_ in front of him. Harry only shook his head is amusement.

"How about you, Ron?" Harry rounded on his friend. "Try using Malfoy's name."

"Ugh, alright. D—" Ron winced, like it was physically _painful_ to say even that. Malfoy fidgeted a bit, as if feeling the exact same pain. Ron sighed and tried again "D…Dr—"

"No. Just, no," Malfoy interrupted.

Harry sighed again.

"Look," Malfoy began, "it's really okay if he calls me Malfoy. It's my name. It's my heritage. And despite everything that's happened, I'm still proud of it. It's who I am."

"But—" Harry said.

"It's true, Harry," Ron immediately nodded in agreement, cutting off anything that Harry might have to say. "He calls me Weasley now, right? At least we don't call each other Weasel and Ferret, right?"

Sniggering broke out from the rest of the team, and Ron and Malfoy glared at them at the same time.

"Well, okay," Harry relented, though he was still somewhat unconvinced. "As long as it doesn't interfere with our training…"

Ron let out a sigh of relief.

"Well, then," Roan said, stretching up and moving towards the door. The rest of the team followed him, all eager to get back to their rooms. "At least that wiped the constipated look Red's been sporting for the past hour and a half."

* * *

-:-

* * *

The principal tool in creating a perfect tactical team was trust. Trust that each one in the team will have your back. Trust that you will be able to protect all the members of your team in turn. And trust that you will be able to complete the mission. Which was why one of the most vital parts of training was to create a method of communication that would enable them to work out whether anyone in the team has been compromised or not while the mission was still active.

"And I'm telling you, we can't use a Patronus!"

"Why not? We use it all the time in the Auror Department!"

"No!"

Ron and Malfoy were having a face-off in the tactical room in their trainee residence, both red faced and breathing heavily.

"Have you forgotten that you're supposed to follow my orders, Malfoy?" Ron narrowed his eyes.

Malfoy's voice became dangerously low. "Don't you dare, Weasley."

The entire team suddenly leapt up as both Ron and Malfoy's hands shot to their wand holsters. Seth and Damon held each of Ron's arms while Roan pushed him back down on his seat.

"Stop making it worse, Ron," Harry snapped as he himself wrestled with Malfoy, using his entire body to block Malfoy's hostile advances towards Ron. "And you," Harry continued, turning to his enraged partner with a stern look. "You know he's only trying to bait you."

Wands were drawn and Calming Draughts were threatened to be used before the two men backed down and once again sat at opposite ends of the table. Harry took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. It was barely noon and he was already tired.

"Okay fine, we won't," Ron finally yielded. "Just tell me why we can't use it."

"Because, Weasley, that would effectively render half the team useless," Malfoy ground out.

"Wait, not everyone can cast a corporeal Patronus?" Ron said looking around for the first time, genuinely surprised.

"Not since I stopped playing Quidditch," Damon said, shaking his head.

"Nope," Seth said, both hands raised in surrender. "Not even smoke from the tip of my wand."

That was when Harry remembered that Snape was the only Death Eater who had been able to produce a Patronus. He cast a glance at his partner, who was looking fixedly at the floor. There was no need to ask if Malfoy was capable of producing a Patronus.

"Okay, look," Harry said. "We'll just have to find another way. How about something like our DA coins, Ron? We could use a Protean Charm to enchant something."

"No," Ron said. "It has to be something that we can't accidentally lose during a mission."

"Hmm." They all turned to Roan, who was staring into space with his face all scrunched up as if concentrating on something. "How about we just speak in codes? Like in those Muggle movies where the Queen's guard would touch a blue ribbon if there's an assassin in the room or something."

"That's brilliant!" cried Seth. "Do we get to watch Muggle movies? You know, to get ideas, or something."

"But we'll have to be more discreet than that," Ron added, becoming excited. "We'll have to think up of words for everything!"

No one but Harry noticed when Malfoy quietly slipped out of the room.

Harry waited a couple of minutes before going after him. He found Malfoy in their shared bedroom, sitting on a chair by the lone cheap-looking desk in their room and reading a book. Harry could only assume that it was another volume of _Attack and Counter-Attack Spells for Advanced Duellists_. There were twelve books in all and Malfoy had already memorised all the spells from the first eight volumes.

"Hey," Harry said as he approached.

When Malfoy didn't look up, he perched at the edge of the fragile desk, making it squeak in protest under his weight.

"I swear you're going to break that desk one of these days," Malfoy said without looking up.

Harry ignored the comment. "Was it really the Patronus that got to you or was it something else?" he asked bluntly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Malfoy gave an exasperated sigh and closed his book.

They'd been partners for a year. They had spent the entire time living under the same roof as the rest of the team and undergoing intense training day in and day out. Being partners meant Malfoy now probably knew more about Harry than Ron ever did. The same could have been said of Harry when it comes to Malfoy, except Malfoy had been extremely secretive about his past. While there were still things that Harry didn't know about Malfoy, particularly what he had been doing during the last four years that he spent as a Hit Wizard, there were some things that Malfoy just couldn't hide. Harry knew the man well enough to read him, or at least enough that he could translate the exasperated sigh into I-really-want-to-talk-about-it-but-I'm-not-about-to-admit-it-to-you.

"Well?" Harry prompted again, which earned him a glare from the blond. Harry didn't flinch. He was much too used to Malfoy's glares now.

Malfoy kept stubbornly silent for a while, but finally he took out his wand and cast a Silencing charm on their door. "You have to do something about Weasley," Malfoy said. "We can't continue like this if we're to make a solid team."

"What do you mean?" Harry crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing. "After a year of being on his team, you still don't trust him? Hell, Malfoy, we've been on a clearing room with live AKs bouncing off the walls! You're telling me you still can't trust Ron to have your back?"

"It's not like that," Malfoy snapped.

"Well, what is it, then?"

"I just don't think _he_ trusts _me_."

* * *

-:-

* * *

Every drill in the Operator Training Course would start with a simple diagram. They memorised everything, from where an Operator should be standing once the first spell was cast, to where they were supposed to be once the final target had been taken down. Everything was precise and accurate, and no spell or hex was ever wasted.

All drills would each start with one operator. When a one-man assault had been mastered, they would work in pairs. Then after that, in teams of threes and fours, and then finally the entire six-man team would execute the drill. They would first practise using mild hexes until they get the sequence right, then progress to damaging spells and perfect their techniques, before finally using the more lethal spells to complete their training. By the time they reached actual combat, they were more than ready.

In between these drills, they would add what they liked to call "unanticipated factors." They would have Teammate Down drills and Disarmed Operator drills, learning how to pick up their partner's duty when one of them became incapacitated.

It was during one of these "unanticipated factors" drills that Malfoy got injured for the first time. They were doing a room clearing in an abandoned building scenario and the rotting beams and cracked foundations gave an element of instability. They were about to complete their drill when the last spell that Damon cast rebounded off of a wall and hit one of the rotting beams above Ron's head. Both Harry and Malfoy were the quickest to react. Harry, who was at the other side of the room at the time, cast a protective shield around him, but Malfoy, who had been right beside him, had pushed Ron away before trying to cast his own spell. But the spell on Malfoy's lips wasn't fast enough to counter the falling beam, and there was nothing anyone could do when the foundation of the building collapsed on him. If it weren't for Harry's shielding charm and Damon's quick resuscitation, there would have been one less Operator in their team.

"I still don't get it," Ron said, cocking his head and gazing pensively at their sleeping teammate lying on an infirmary bed in DMEC's training facility.

Malfoy had been there since the night before and Harry refused to leave his bedside, insisting that it was his job as Malfoy's partner to watch over him. Their unit commander gave Harry leave for the day, and when the day's training was done, the rest of the team had come by to gather around Malfoy's bed. It had been a long time since any of them had to be taken to the infirmary to be patched up.

"Why did he come back at all?" Ron asked for the fifth time that day. "If it were for Harry I'd understand, because he's his partner. But for me…?"

"Is it really that hard to believe?" Harry asked, standing right beside him. Ron had been confused at Malfoy's behaviour ever since the incident had happened. It seemed that he couldn't wrap his head around the thought of Malfoy saving his arse.

"The truth, mate?" Ron said, looking at Harry sideways. "It's actually kind of unsettling."

Across from them Roan huffed. "It's a Slytherin thing," he said almost irritably.

Harry looked up. "A what?"

"A Slytherin thing," Roan repeated, a bit louder this time.

Roan's face looked as if he was debating with himself how he could explain to two former Gryffindors his former House's quirks without being disloyal to his own.

"We Slytherins, we take care of our own," Roan began. "What we call 'our own' may vary from one to another, but the essence is still the same. If anyone from another House tries to prank anyone in Slytherin, we strike back. If people try to hurt any of our friends, we hurt them back, even if they're fellow Slytherins. As for families, nobody messes with our families. We'd kill you in a heartbeat if you mess with our family, even if we're best mates.

"So, Red," Roan said, eyeing Ron evenly. "Even if you and D have had your differences in the past, even if he used to _hate_ you, he'd still risk his life for you because you're part of what he calls his own now. And the deeper the bond, the greater the sacrifice. So at least now you know where you stand with him."

Ron shook his head in disbelief. "So that means…"

"It means I overestimated the weight of the beams," a rough and chalky voice floated from the bed. "I would've left you there if I'd known Potter's charm would give."

A huge sigh of relief rushed through everyone in the room as Malfoy slowly cracked his eyes open to look at them all.

"Oi, Malfoy!"

"You gave us a fright there, D."

"Circe, what are you all doing here?" Malfoy tried to get up, and four sets of hands immediately pushed him back down to the bed.

"Oh no you don't, D," Damon admonished, his wand casting a quick diagnosis spell. "You're not getting up from there for at least another twenty-four hours."

Malfoy tried to struggle, but couldn't get the rest of the team to relinquish their hold on him. He settled on glaring at each of them instead as they teased him for his Gryffindor bravery.

Ron cleared his throat. "Listen, Malfoy," Ron began uneasily. "I…I mean—"

"Save it, Weasley," Malfoy said, cutting Ron off before he could say anything. "Don't even start with that."

There was silence as the two looked at each other for a long time, as if they were having a silent conversation. Then Ron gave Malfoy a small grin, which Malfoy accepted with an almost imperceptible nod. Apparently, that was all that needed to be said between them.

Later that day, when everyone was ordered to return to their house by their unit commander, Harry lingered a bit beside his partner's bed.

"What was that about?" Harry asked, referring the incident with Ron earlier.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Potter." Malfoy squirmed and looked away.

"You know what I'm talking about, Malfoy."

"It was nothing," Malfoy insisted. "Besides, I didn't do it for him. I did it for the team."

"So…you and Ron. You're okay now, right?" Harry asked tentatively.

Malfoy was silent for a while, before he finally spoke. "Yeah. And tell him he needn't mention it again. Ever."

Harry grinned, knowing that Malfoy would never admit to doing such a Gryffindorish deed. Especially when he did it for a _Weasley_.

"But I do," Harry said. He stepped closer to the bed and placed a hand on Malfoy's shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "You're an idiot for doing it, but thank you…Draco."

* * *

con'd


	3. Chapter 3

_Present Time, Unknown Location_

* * *

When he came to after the Stunner had hit him, Harry found himself in the interrogation room once again. He was seated in a chair with his hands tied behind his back. Someone had just dumped a bucket of water on his head.

Harry saw that Shorty was there with his wand, but Fatty was nowhere to be seen.

"Awake now, Potter?"

Harry looked up to glare at his former teammate.

"Not surprised, are you?" asked Seth.

There were only two cardinal rules in the Squad: one was to never betray your cover, and the other was to never lay an angry hand on your teammate. Right now, Harry was so furious that he was tempted to break them both if only so he could smash Seth's nose.

Harry clenched his jaw. _Never betray your cover._ If an Operator had been compromised, never acknowledge them. That had been their hard and fast rule in the Squad. If someone did anything to compromise the mission, they'd be out faster than they could say _Evanesco_.

"When they killed Count—and yes, Count really _is_ dead—they captured me and cut me a deal," Seth continued. "I bring them the rest of the team, and I get to walk away. I got to Red first, used his wife and kids as bait. And then we got Angler, but he was able to slip away."

It had taken every ounce of Harry's willpower not to leap from his seat when he mentioned Hermione and Ron's children. They shouldn't even be part of this. _Fuck._

"But that doesn't matter, because now we have _you_."

When they got back from the underground facility where they had extracted the artefact, they found out that Alton, their point of contact, wasn't the only one that was compromised. Their tactical headquarters, which they had set up in a small abandoned warehouse a few blocks from the target location, was already swarming with DMLE officers who were looking for them with the directive to arrest them on sight.

They immediately retreated and decided not to retrieve their gear from the HQ, even though pertinent operational documents could be found there. They already had a contingency plan in place, as they knew that there was a possibility that they would be compromised and labelled as criminals if they were discovered. What surprised them, however, was how fast it had happened.

DMLE knew where their HQ was, who their contact was, and knew how to track their movements. It was as if someone had leaked the information. The only conclusion they could draw was that someone had tipped DMLE off to the operation.

And so they decided to split the team up into twos. Seth and Damon were to head to the second rendezvous point to meet their POC. If Alton showed up, it meant he was able to get away and it was safe to deliver the package.

Ron and Roan intended to retrieve information on why they were wanted by DMLE. They were to recover any intel that could help them in delivering the package safely. But their biggest task was to figure out who was the leak in the operation.

Finally, Harry and Draco were supposed to secure the package and keep it safe. They were to stay underground and wait for communication from the others. But now, Harry had been captured, Seth had turned, and he'd be damned if he told him Draco's whereabouts.

"So, are you ready to tell me where the package is?" Seth asked with a nasty grin on his face.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh come now, Potter," Seth said with a wave of his hand. "You needn't play ignorant with me. I _know_ what you know."

Harry clenched his jaw and said nothing.

"Very well, then," Seth said, taking out his wand.

Seth stepped forward and raised his wand to cast a spell Harry had never heard of before. Harry mentally catalogued it as possibly something only Unspeakables were familiar with. When the spell hit, Harry felt like he had been punched a hundred times with that single spell.

Harry doubled over from the blow. And when he spat on the ground, there was blood mixed with his saliva.

"That all you got?" Harry asked with a slight smirk, even as blood dribbled from the side of his face.

"Oh no, Potter," Seth replied. "We're only getting started."

Seth cast the same spell again, but this time Harry was prepared to take the hit.

"Tell me where Malfoy is," Seth demanded.

Harry only coughed up more blood in reply.

Seth hit Harry with the spell again.

"Give him up, Potter. He's nothing but a Death Eater."

Harry's eyes blazed, but still he kept his mouth firmly shut. On and on Seth kept asking him and he kept recasting the spell. Yet somehow, Harry felt something odd about the spell Seth was using.

They'd known each other for nearly two years now. Seth had undergone the same training he did, and that included how to survive an interrogation. There were over a dozen ways Seth could have gotten the information from Harry easily. Had their roles been reversed, Harry would never use physical violence—it was what they were trained most to resist. Moreover, repetitive use of a single spell would diminish its potency with each cast.

It was as if Seth was trying _not_ to hurt him at all.

"Tell me where he is, Potter," Seth said once again.

When Harry didn't say anything, Short sent another curse, this time toppling Harry's chair, leaving him struggling to breathe on the ground. Shorty advanced menacingly but Seth stopped him.

Then suddenly Seth's demeanour changed. "Count is dead, Red is captured and we can't find Angler. We need the package that Malfoy has so we can bring down Shacklebolt and the entire Ministry—"

Harry's eyes widened. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. That was what the package was for? _Treason._ Alarm bells rang through Harry's mind as he heard Seth use their team's call signs. Count. Red. Angler. Why was he using them instead of their real names? Did it mean…

"Oi! Are you sure you're allowed to say that?" Shorty said suddenly.

Seth turned to Shorty, his evil looking grin now back in place. "Don't worry. He's not talking so we'll soon dispose of him anyway." Then Seth turned back to Harry, grabbing him painfully by the hair and forcing him to look his former teammate in the eye. "You hear that, Potter? Death is coming. Prepare yourself."

Seth ordered the men to take him back to his cell. They handled him with as much force as they could. This was, after all, their last chance to get a good hex at the famous Harry Potter.

When he was finally alone, Harry allowed himself to think, to hope. He ran Seth's words through his head. Had Seth just given him vital intel regarding their team? If he really had turned, why would Seth give him a hint on what was inside the package?

And he could not, for any reason, get Seth's last words from his mind. Because really, it could only mean one thing.

_Death is coming._

_Prepare yourself._

* * *

_-:-_

* * *

_Three weeks ago_

* * *

Life in the Squad was difficult most of the time, and dangerous almost all the time. And sometimes… sometimes it could be utterly deadly.

When Harry first became Draco's partner two years ago, he didn't think he'd survive training constantly, working with the man at such close proximity, not only during training, but also when they returned to their trainee house where they were assigned to share a room. Harry had given them a month before they end up killing each other.

He was surprised when he lasted the month. Yes, they nearly came close to hexing each other more times than they could count, but the fact that they were still breathing had been enough to convince Harry that there was a sliver of chance that they could actually succeed in working together.

Then somehow, through the course of training, Harry had come to see Draco not as the pale thin boy he used to follow around back in Hogwarts. He saw that Draco had become a man with his own set of ways and beliefs. Even with his past, he knew how to hold his head high amidst the hate and how to bow down when faced with the consequences of his actions. He knew where the fine line between atonement ended and self-flagellation began.

This, above all, was what made Harry see him in a different light. And that, in turn, had created a different set of problems for Harry. It made Harry stop wanting to wring his partner's neck and instead do the complete opposite. And possibly just as dangerous. It didn't help that the fit body and the display of powerful magic had him feeling uncomfortable in awkward situations as well.

Draco, for the most part, had been nothing but professional when dealing with Harry. They were partners, and partners would always have each other's back no matter what. It was that _need_ to have a solid foundation of trust that stopped Harry from even thinking about Draco as anything else. But sometimes… sometimes Harry would slip, and someone was bound to notice.

"Oh, Harry," Seth came up to him one day, circling one arm dramatically around his neck. "What you're trying to do is positively _painful_. Just shag him already. Remember, you get distracted on a mission and you're dead."

_A distracted operator is a dead operator._

That had been their mantra from the beginning. He would tell himself that every time his mind went off track. Eventually, Harry was able to control his desires until nothing was left except their solid partnership.

Or as solid as could be, considering how stubborn and temperamental they both were.

"I swear, Malfoy, you touch that and I will _end_ you!"

Harry glowered as Draco's hand hover over the last treacle tart on the table. They were just finishing dinner and lingering at the table with a bottle of beer each, save for Draco. Harry learned that his partner had stopped drinking when he became a Hit Wizard. "If you drink to forget, you'd end up feeling shittier when you remember everything the next day," was what Draco used to say.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Ron warned Draco with a shake of his head. "Never stand between Harry and dessert. That's the unwritten rule at the Burrow whenever he visits."

"Oi!" Harry exclaimed. Then he leaned forward and asked in a slightly lower voice, "Is that true?"

"Fine, you can have your plebeian dessert," Draco sniffed, "but you're doing the dishes tonight."

"But I already cooked dinner!" Harry protested.

"Harry," Damon said, "Owling for a take-away isn't exactly the same as cooking, you know."

Everyone at the table sniggered and Harry pouted.

It had been almost two years since Selection and they had been living together in the trainee house since then. In less than two months they would become full-fledged Operators, making up the Division's Second Squad.

"Oh fine," Harry grumbled, but he was still happy to have the last treacle tart.

"So boys, what are your plans this Christmas?" Roan asked.

"I plan on getting laid in the next two weeks!" Seth answered enthusiastically and Roan gave him a high-five.

"Going home to my wife and kids. Gonna take them to the Burrow," Ron said then turned to Harry, "and Mum's expecting you as well, Harry. So don't go making any plans."

"Um, I'm not sure that's a good idea," Harry said slowly.

"Aw, c'mon. Its only once a year."

"Yeah, but it's our last Christmas as a team," Harry hedged, daring to glance in a certain blond's direction. "Might want to spend it with these guys."

Ron gave him a calculating look, but didn't say anything else. Harry's falling out with Ginny had been years ago. It had been several years of awkward Christmases since then, but after a while they had become great friends. It had been a while since Harry had needed to make up an excuse to miss Christmas at the Burrow, and he wasn't entirely surprised that Ron was suspicious.

"You know, Harry," Seth began, "Training is nearly over and we still haven't found a name for you. Do you want Treacle Hog to be your name?"

Harry groaned. It had been like this for the past few nights. Seth was determined to find a name for him ever since he had remembered his promise from long ago that Harry would get a nickname before training was over. They tried everything, from Boy Wonder to Serpens—a homage to his (hardly used) Parseltongue ability—but nothing quite fit.

"Yeah, training's nearly over," Ron said, suddenly turning melancholy. "I think I'm gonna miss this."

"Not eager to go home to the missus?" Roan asked.

"Of course I can't wait to go home," Ron said. "Two years of being able to go home only on weekends has been hard for me and Hermione, but she understands." Everyone nodded in sympathy. Ron and Damon were the only married members of the team, and Damon had long since been divorced. "But it doesn't mean I won't miss this. Us, just hanging out after getting a good beating in training, beer in one hand and—" Ron pointed his wand at the newly opened bottle in front of him and frost began to appear on the bottle's surface "—a good Cooling Charm in the other."

"Yeah," Seth mused. "I remember seeing Roan pulling one over an Unspeakable during Selection. He got eliminated after that, did you know?"

Roan laughed. "Well, use every resource you have. That's what our unit commander said, right?"

"I can't forget the first Elimination when three Unspeakables Disapparated wandlessly in Romania." Ron shook his head. "That's one for the record books, wandless Disapparition."

Harry remembered that too. Somehow, he'd never been able to figure out how they had done it.

"Aren't you one of those Unspeakables, Seth?" Damon asked.

"No way!" Ron exclaimed. "That was you? How are you even able to Disapparate without your wand?"

Harry watched as the rest of the team grinned.

"I didn't say I did it wandlessly," Seth answered mysteriously.

"What?" Ron asked, getting more confused. "But isn't that cheating? Besides, how were you able to conceal a wand? They searched us right before they let us go."

"I had my wand with me the whole time," Roan joined in.

"So did I," Damon added.

"Actually, Weasley, that part was to separate the veterans from the… rookies," Draco said with one raised eyebrow. "It's a rookie mistake not to have an extra wand hidden, and it's even better if you can conceal your wand even when searched."

Harry's jaw all but dropped. "Nobody _told_ us that!"

"As I said, rookies." Draco smirked. "But if it makes you feel any better, _I_ turned in all my wands."

"And why is that?" Harry asked.

"To even the playing field," Draco answered back, and everyone laughed.

"Disapparating wandlessly isn't the hard part there." Seth grinned, looking each of them in turn. "The better question would be, how did we do it when there was an anti-Disapparition ward in the area."

"That's what I'd like to know," Roan muttered.

"Well, I'd tell you…"

"Yeah, yeah," Roan said, waving him off with a hand. "But then you'd have to kill us, right? _God_, you Unspeakables are annoying."

Seth laughed. "No, really. I'd tell you, let me just grab us another round."

"So," Harry turned to his partner when Seth left the table. "Extra wands? Why didn't anyone tell us about this?"

"The question is," Draco countered, "why did it take you this long to know something as simple as that?"

"I'm going to have to buy a new wand," Ron said mournfully. "I've never had any luck with wands."

"I probably need one as well." Harry sighed, leaning back in his seat.

"You don't need a new one, mate," Ron reminded him. "You already have one that works fine. You know the one you had that wand expert check over?"

Harry paled.

He watched as his half-drunk friend told the team about the wand Harry had gotten during the war and how Harry had used it to defeat Voldemort. He told them how Harry had used it as if it was his own, long after he had repaired his own wand using the Elder Wand. Harry could almost feel the set of grey eyes boring through his skull, but Harry refused to look back, keeping his eyes fixed on the bottle of beer in his hand.

And when Ron told everyone that Harry nearly swapped his wand permanently with the one he had acquired, Harry wanted to melt into the floor.

There was a loud scraping sound made by a chair as someone abruptly stood and stormed out of the room.

"Oi, going already, Malfoy?" Ron called out, but turned back to the table when there was no reply. "Bah, he never drinks with us anyway."

"What did I miss?" Seth asked as he sauntered back into the room, levitating another round of beer behind him. "D just walked out in a right foul mood and I thought he'd murdered you lot in here."

"That's Malfoy, he's always like that," Ron replied easily. "Oh, say, Harry, wasn't the wand you were using Malfoy's wand?"

"_What?_"

Everyone gaped at Ron's pronouncement.

Harry resisted the strong urge to hex his best mate. Instead, he grabbed two bottles from the air as they were floating by his head and began downing them successively.

"Oh, I think we're going to need something much stronger than this," Ron said, tapping his empty beer bottle.

* * *

-:-

* * *

Harry was positively drunk by the time he got the courage to go up to the room he shared with Draco. He opened the door slightly to peer in, hoping that his partner was already asleep. No such luck; Draco was again reading at their shared desk. Fear nearly sobered him instantly.

Harry quietly crept into the room. Unable to decide what to do, he stood behind his partner, one hand near his wand holster, ready to cast a protective shield if Draco decided to hex him.

"Do you know what my first assignment was when they made me a Hit Wizard?" Draco said without even looking up from his book.

That surprised Harry for two reasons. One was that Draco was no longer so angry that he might accidentally kill him. The other was that Draco never talked about his days as a Hit Wizard. _Never_.

"It was Greg."

"Goyle?" Harry asked, surprised.

Harry rounded the room and perched on his usual spot at the edge of the desk. He wobbled a bit, but Draco held him steady. Harry bit his lip, refusing to acknowledge that his heart had skipped a bit at that one touch.

"Yeah," Draco answered. "We were only supposed to capture dangerous criminals and hand them over to DMLE. But sometimes… sometimes they refuse to be taken in. And that's when you take them down."

Harry couldn't say anything. He could see fire at the back of his mind. He could almost imagine the smell of burnt wood and the heat on his face as he sped out of the burning room.

"Greg was my first hit," Draco said.

Well, fuck.

When he had heard that news in the Prophet, they reported that Goyle was accidentally killed trying to escape authorities. He never would have imagined that something like this had happened. Forced to kill your own friends. It was sick, Harry thought.

"I'm sorry," Harry whispered.

"I used to think… I used to think that if I had had my old wand, I wouldn't be able to do it, you know?" Draco finally looked up and met Harry's eyes. "The way I couldn't do it in the Astronomy Tower. But I did. I was able to do it with my new wand."

Harry kept quiet, not knowing what to say. He so desperately wanted to comfort the man before him, but there was nothing that anyone could say to make it all better. Not at a time like this.

"I hated you then," Draco continued. "I thought you were keeping my wand just to spite me. But when Weasley said the wand was completely attuned to your magic—that it was working perfectly for you, I realised that I could never have my wand back again."

Draco had closed his eyes. He looked entirely vulnerable right now, and Harry could see the ghost of his old self, the troubled teen who went through a war that he never fully understood, showing through. This time though, Harry didn't fight the urge. He slid down from his perch at the desk and carefully wrapped his arms around Draco's shoulders. He felt Draco stiffen for a moment, then he gradually relaxed and melted into his embrace.

They stayed like that for a long moment, Draco not doing any but breathing deeply, and Harry not merely comforting Draco, but taking as much comfort as he was giving in turn.

"Can I… can I see it?"

Draco was the first to break the silence and pulled away from Harry. They looked at each other, not completely trusting and not completely vulnerable. But Harry knew that he had learned something about Draco that night that no one else could possibly know.

"Of course," Harry replied.

Harry raised one hand to Summon Draco's wand. There was the soft click of a latch as his trunk opened, and from its depths, a long thin object began to float towards them. Harry took the wand as it gently hovered between them. Then he held his palm out in front of Draco, offering the wand to him.

"My…" Draco whispered almost brokenly.

"Yeah," Harry said. "It was."

Draco looked up sharply at the comment, but didn't say anything. And then with trembling hands, he gently lifted the wand from Harry's palm.

"Go on, try it," Harry urged him gently.

There was a spark of green and silver as Draco waved the wand. But when he tried to cast a simple Lumos, there was only a small flicker of light from the tip.

"Ah, I should have known," Draco said disappointedly.

"Wait," Harry said, taking the wand and lighting a Lumos of his own. This time the light shined brightly from the tip. Then he extinguished the light and closed his eyes, hand clutching tightly at the wand. When he opened his eyes again, he handed the wand to Draco and said, "Try it again."

Draco took the wand gingerly and cast the same spell. Incredibly, the light at the tip was ten times stronger that the one he had previously produced.

"How…?"

Harry only shook his head. "Because it's you."

"I don't understand."

"The wand is mine, but it's… choosing you."

"Choosing me?"

"Yeah. For me."

And light dawned in Draco's eyes as he finally understood what Harry was trying to say.

"Oh," Draco said. "_Oh._"

"Yeah." Harry smiled wryly.

"I—" Draco said, his voice strangely choked. "I didn't realise."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, frowning and backing away a little. "I wasn't thinking. I shouldn't have said that. I only wanted to be able to return your wand."

"No! No wait, I mean…" Draco was fumbling for words to say. "I mean… I just didn't notice. I don't mind… not really."

"Really?" Something surged in Harry's chest at hearing that. With his half drunk brain working with his legendary Gryffindor courage, Harry leaned forward to whisper in Draco's ear. "You should have told me that a long time ago."

Harry felt rather than saw Draco shiver against him. _Oh,_ Harry thought as he processed Draco's reaction. _He wants this._

Harry pressed closer, his lips a hair's breadth away from Draco's neck. There was a sharp intake of breath and suddenly, the warm body pressed against him was gone.

"Harry," Draco said in a whisper, his voice shaking. "What are you doing?"

"Don't you want this too?"

"I do, but…"

"Then what's the problem?" Harry asked, stalking towards Draco as the man slowly retreated.

"The—you're drunk, Harry," Draco almost pleaded. "You don't want this."

"But I _do_ want this," Harry insisted. "It's alright if we both want this, right?"

"No," Draco said, then stopped. He hesitated before saying, "Tomorrow. Tomorrow, when you're sober."

"No, you won't let me when I'm sober!"

"Tomorrow, I promise."

Unfortunately, tomorrow never came.

* * *

cont'd


	4. Chapter 4

Their mission came the day after that fateful night. When the Aurors began to follow their trail, they spilt up into teams. Harry had been in that last team with Draco. They were to protect the package at all cost.

But a distracted operator is a dead operator. Harry's head had been on the mission at the time, but once the team had split and he and Draco went underground, there was nothing else to do but brood. They spent Christmas in a small dingy hotel room without even realising that Christmas had passed them by.

After three days of keeping a low profile and concealing the package, they were contacted by the first team and were given coordinates for the delivery. When they got there, however, not only the regular MLE Patrol officers were in the area, but there were also Aurors lying undercover and trying their best to look inconspicuous. Both Harry and Draco recognised them at once, though. The Aurors never received the training that their team had had.

They decided to abandon the meeting and contact the other teams to suspend the rendezvous. But just as they were about to Disapparate, Harry saw a familiar green light of a curse heading straight for them. The last memory Harry had was jumping in front of the curse, and his partner's shocked face as Draco vanished with the pull of Disapparition.

Harry was immensely relieved that Draco had been carrying the package at the time. Otherwise the entire mission would have been a complete failure. If Draco followed protocol, he should be far away by now, meeting up with the rest of the team to secure the package. But knowing his partner, Harry wouldn't be surprised if he had done something uncharacteristic.

Like come and rescue him.

_Death is coming. Prepare yourself._

Harry had felt a glimmer of hope when he'd heard Seth say those words. It meant that Seth was still one of them. But it also meant that Draco was on his way to him. If Draco did anything to compromise the mission, Harry swore he would kill the bastard himself.

And, as if right on cue, loud explosions rocked the entire building, sending dust falling from the ceiling. Harry could hear shouts from above. A large bang echoed through the basement as a wall was apparently smashed to pieces. The next thing he heard was the familiar sound of his partner's voice shouting from the hallway.

"Harry!"

"In here!" he shouted back.

The next instant, the door to his cell was flying off its hinges and Draco was stepping through the doorway and taking Harry in his arms.

"Harry! Oh thank fuck."

"Draco." Harry nearly sobbed in relief. They still weren't safe, not by a long shot. "We need to get out of here."

"I know," Draco nodded as he pulled Harry up, putting an arm around Harry's waist. "I saw someone send for reinforcements just before I was able to Stun him. They'll be arriving soon."

"Wait," Harry stopped him. "Where's the package? You don't have it here with you, do you? Because if you do—"

"It's with Roan," Draco said cutting him off. "I met with him before coming. That's why it took me this long to find you."

"Oh," Harry said. "How did you find the place anyway?"

"I followed someone here," Draco says darkly.

"D!" came a familiar shout.

They both saw Seth enter the room, and Draco's wand immediately pointed at him.

"No!" Harry cried, but it was too late. Before Harry could stop him, Draco had already cast a nonverbal spell at Seth, sending him flying in the opposite side of the room. "Stop, stop!"

"That fucking bastard!" Draco was shouting. "He was the one I followed here. He was the one who took you, don't you remember?"

"Wait!" Harry said, trying to wrestle with Draco's wand arm with the remaining strength he had. "I don't know, I don't _remember!_ I was Obliviated, I think. But he was the one who told me you were coming. He's still one of us."

A ragged cough came from the side of the room where Seth was lying. Then slowly, Seth struggled to sit upright. Harry wanted to go to him to check if he was okay, his instinct as secondary Healer for the team kicking in, but Draco was holding him back.

"Nasty spell you have there, D," Seth said, grinning as though his mouth wasn't all bloody.

"I'll kill you, di Mezzo. I swear I will." Draco advanced upon Seth as if he really was about to kill him.

"No time for that," Seth said. Then from the inner pocket of his robe, he pulled out two wands and tossed them both to Harry. It was his and Draco's old wand. "Get out of here, you two. Get the package. I'll keep them occupied."

"You won't be able to hold them off," Harry said. "This place will be swarming with Aurors looking for us. And now you've screwed them as well. They'll kill you."

Harry saw in his eyes that Seth already knew this. He could very well die in this place. But Seth only gave him a tired grin and said, "Why do you think they named me Spring Breeze?"

Harry heard Draco swear. "You still owe me an explanation, di Mezzo." And in a much softer voice, he added, "Don't die."

"No, wait!" Harry said.

Then Harry felt Draco pulling him out of the room, and together they were half-running half-staggering to get out. They didn't stop running until they were miles away from the safe house and Draco told him to, "Hold on," as Draco Disapparated them through the wards using the very spell Seth had taught them weeks ago.

They staggered when they landed. They were bent over double, trying to catch their breaths when Harry suddenly punched Draco.

"_What the fuck?!_" Draco screamed angrily.

"Why did you leave him there?" Harry was shouting. "We could have taken him with us. We could have saved him!"

"You know we couldn't," Draco shouted back. "There's no way we'd be able to leave that place, all three of us together. If we all get caught, we won't finish the mission!"

"Then you shouldn't have come in the first place, you idiot!" Harry shouted. "You were supposed to take the package to the dead drop. What the hell are you doing rescuing me?"

"Because I—" Draco began to shout and then stopped and slumped down on the ground. Then in a much softer voice he said, "Because I can't sacrifice you for the mission. You're more important than the mission."

Harry looked at his partner, and suddenly, they were sixteen again. Lost and fighting a war that was too big for either of them, not sure whether what they were doing was still for the greater good.

Harry sat down beside Draco, equally tired. "This is so messed up," Harry said, shaking his head. "I step in the line of fire for you and get captured, and then you come and rescue me and now our mission is in deeper shit, and _still_ I couldn't care less."

Harry turned to Draco, a soft smile playing on his lips. Draco sighed and returned it with a tired smile of his own.

"We should go, Potter," Draco eventually said. "Just promise me, after this mission is done, then we'll _really_ talk."

Harry grinned. "Of course. I—"

And then there was a flash of blinding white and everything turned black.

* * *

-:-

* * *

For the second time since the mission began, Harry felt disoriented. _What were we drinking last night_? Harry swore he'd never let Roan go anywhere near his drink again. He rubbed his eyes to wake himself.

"Welcome back, Potter."

Harry blinked. It was a voice he'd not heard in a long while.

He looked around and realised that he didn't have his glasses. All he could see were the pristine white walls of what could only be a hospital room, and several monitoring devices that were blinking steadily off to one side of his bed. He tried to sit up and reached his hand out, hoping to find his glasses on a side table, because this was definitely not his room he was waking up in.

"Easy there," the familiar voice said again.

Harry found himself being helped upright and his glasses shoved in his hand. He put his glasses on and stared at the man before him.

"Baker?" Harry greeted his unit commander half confused and half in wonder. "What are you…? Where…?"

Then Harry became aware of the female Healer that was casting monitoring spells around him. He got poked and prodded quite a bit, before the Healer went to the foot of his bed to write something on his chart.

"Potter," Baker nodded at him. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions."

"Try a million and one," Harry couldn't help but say. "But first, where is…?"

The door to his room suddenly burst open and Harry couldn't help but gasp when he saw who had stepped in.

"Ron!" Harry said surprise evident in his voice.

"Oi, mate, glad to see you're up," Ron said as he walked to Harry's side, his face in a huge grin.

"And about time too," a voice piped up behind Ron.

"_Damon?_" And this time, Harry was completely flabbergasted. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Well, they don't call me Count for nothing, do they?" Damon replied.

"And don't forget about us," another voice called out from the door.

"Seth!" Harry cried when he caught sight of the man. "You're okay."

"I very nearly wouldn't be if you hadn't woken up," Seth replied with amused exasperation. "_Merlin_, he's been a right pain since he got here. Can you _please_ reassure him that you're fine?"

And that was when Harry saw Draco walk into the room.

He had expected his partner to be relieved to see him. He had even dared to hope for Draco to come rushing to his bedside. But he just walked in his usual calm stride that seemed _painfully slow_ right now for Harry, and greeted him with a nod and a soft, "Hi."

_Was that it?_ Harry wondered. Harry was about to ask just that when he saw the tiny imperceptible twitch of Draco's mouth and the sparkle of amusement in his eyes. _Oh_. Well, then. And just like that, Harry was reassured that Draco, _his_ Draco, was somewhere underneath the formal, reserved exterior of the operator that he was.

"Ahem." Harry heard Baker clear his throat and he turned back to his unit commander. "Questions? You have some, I'm sure."

"Oh, right," Harry said, remembering where he was and ignoring the sniggers of his teammates. "What exactly is going on?"

"Well, there will be a formal debriefing after this exercise is officially over," Baker began. "But to make the story short, the mission you were on was actually the final test to see whether or not you're all prepared to become full fledged Operators on the Squad."

"_Exercise?_" Harry said. "You mean it was all a setup?"

"Most of it, yes," Baker said. "But the involvement of the Auror Squad and the MLE Patrol was real, at least on their part. The fact that you stole something from the Department of Mysteries makes you all wanted fugitives. But don't worry, no one has figured out your identities, and we'll return the artefact once we retrieve it."

"This test was actually more for us than for you," Baker continued. "We wanted to know the limits of your abilities—how well you can keep the Division and its members' identities secret, how well you work as a team when all the odds are against you, and what lengths will you go to complete a mission. But the real test here is for you to understand and know your own limits: _what are you willing to sacrifice for the mission?_"

Harry looked around and saw the grave faces of his team. Some of them had been willing to sacrifice their lives in order to save their teammates. And it was all for the sake of the mission. Harry looked at Ron and he knew his friend was thinking of his family who had been threatened during the 'mission'. And Harry finally understood the true purpose of the test. It was for them to know not just what they were willing to give up, but also to know what that _weren't_ willing to sacrifice, so that they might keep them safe long before they get in harm's way.

If this had been a real mission, some of them would already be dead.

"Oh, is that _all_?"

Everyone turned to the foot of Harry's bed and stared at the Healer whom they had all but forgotten. Slowly, the Healer's features began to change, as if her face was melting onto itself. The long hair shortened, and there was a noticeable increase in height. The shapely body began to transform, becoming lean and muscular. And when the effects of what could only be Polyjuice Potion had completely dissolved, Roan stood there and crossed his arms against his chest.

"And here I thought we were doing something like saving the Ministry of Magic from evil former Unspeakables."

The room exploded into excitement, most of them gathered around the final member of their group.

"How did you know where to find us?"

"And how did you get past the heavy guards outside?"

"I'm the infiltration expert here, or have you all forgotten already?"

Draco remained by Harry's side and Harry couldn't help but feel just a bit pleased at the thought.

"You don't seem surprised to see him," Harry told Draco in a low voice.

Draco shook his head and grinned. "I was the one who told him our location."

"Well, then," Baker said with obvious relief as Roan handed him the stolen artefact with exaggerated flourish. "Since all of you are here, we can have a formal debriefing once Potter is discharged."

"Oh does this mean we're officially part of the Squad now?" Ron asked.

Baker smirked. "You will be, once you complete your first _real_ mission."

Everyone groaned good-naturedly.

"Oh, and Potter," Baker said before heading out. "A distracted operator is a dead operator. I suggest you _take care_ of that distraction before going on your next mission."

Beside him, Harry felt Draco lean down and whisper in his ear, "I know the perfect way to do just that."

* * *

-:-

* * *

_Epilogue_

* * *

"I did it!" Draco crowed as he entered the office he and Harry shared, a turquoise coffee mug in his hand.

After their first mission, their team had been officially named as the Bravo Team, or Team Two, of the Squad. They'd been sent back into the wizarding world, so to speak, and were now working as Ministry employees under their cover organization, DMEC.

"Have you been making bets with the Aurors again?" Harry asked his partner amusedly.

"I wagered Creevey twenty galleons that I could steal the Head Auror's favourite coffee mug without anyone noticing," Draco said with a triumphant grin. "And I did it under ten minutes."

Harry shook his head, grinning. "That really isn't fair, you know. You can do that in your sleep."

"You could be a little more supportive here," Draco said with a pout. "I only did it because Creevey told Damon he'd never make the cut for the Auror's Healer Corps."

"And you know for a fact that he won't," Harry reminded him. "It would be too difficult to maintain a cover like that."

"I know, but it's the principle of the thing."

Harry crossed the room to where Draco was and grabbed the man by the waist, pinning him to the desk behind him.

"Well in that case, I guess you deserve a reward for protecting the Count's honour and all," said Harry.

"Oh yes, I definitely do," Draco said, leaning in to capture Harry's lips.

Things had barely even heated up when Ron poked his head into their office without a knock.

"Oh, ew. Can you not do that here?" Ron said with a grimace. "Anyway, a new mission came up. We're needed in the war room right now."

Harry released Draco's lips and they grinned at each other, knowing how they both loved the thrill of going on missions.

"New mission?" Harry asked.

"Just another day at the office, then."

* * *

End


	5. Personnel Files

**Author's notes:**

Since there were some people are asking, I decided to put up this sort-of personnel file which I used while writing The Squad. If you look closely at Harry's file, you'll be able to guess that there's a sequel in the works, and what it's about. But don't hold your breaths; it'll take a while to finish.

Also, this is unbetaed (sorry for any mistakes!) as it was not part of my original submission to last year's HD Hols fest.

* * *

**BONUS**  
**Bravo Team Personnel File**

a compendium to _'The Squad'_ by vala

* * *

**PERSONNEL FILE for RON WEASLEY  
**_(strictly confidential)_

**NAME: Ronald Bilius Weasley  
**Call sign_:_ _"Red"  
_Squad Designation: _Bravo Team, team leader  
_Team Designation 1: _Communicator  
_Team Designation 2: _Tactics Specialist  
_Partner: _Roan Hunter_

**Background:  
**Age on recruitment: 25  
Recruited from: Auror Corps (trainee, local division)

_Recruitment notes:_

- Minor dragon handling abilities _(see: Charles Weasley)  
_- Excels in strategy; capable of calling the shots on who to send and how to execute missions.  
- Potential for NEGOTIATOR designation, specifically hostage negotiations _(Note: Authorize and Train upon completion of ADVANCED Operator Training Course)  
_- Excellent in weapons training, specifically gun assembly/field stripping due to his highly logical mind. _(Note: Should be reminded never to look down the barrel. Point the muzzle at the bad guy and not on himself. Addendum: Goddamit Weasley!)  
_- Named 'RED' by fellow candidates during recruitment as he is apparently a 'natural red'

**COMBAT MISSIONS:**

_**2007  
**_071207-0000: Mission Zero, BASIC Operator Training

_**2008  
**_080317-4523: _CLASSIFIED  
_080528-9253: _CLASSIFIED  
_081002-4076: _CLASSIFIED_

_**2009  
**_090101-2366: _CLASSIFIED  
_090102-2112: _CLASSIFIED  
_090103-6450: _CLASSIFIED  
_090328-1892: _CLASSIFIED  
_090630-8898: _CLASSIFIED  
_091111-1112: _CLASSIFIED_

**Selection:** PASSED  
**BASIC Operator Training Course:** PASSED  
**ADVANCED Operator Training Course:** PENDING

* * *

**PERSONNEL FILE for ROAN HUNTER  
**_(strictly confidential)_

**NAME: Christopher Roan Hunter  
**Call sign_:_ _"Angler"  
_Squad Designation: _Bravo Team  
_Team Designation 1: _Recon Specialist  
_Team Designation 2: _Retriever  
_Partner: _Ron Weasley_

**Background:  
**Age on recruitment: 23  
Recruited from: Auror Corps (International Exchange division)

_Recruitment notes:_

- Excels in stealth and disguise in various and dangerous combinations _(Note: Partial to acting as likeable gay man. Addendum: He is, in fact, painfully straight.)  
_- Excellent infiltration skills, capable of employing both magical and Muggle means.  
- Potential for covert operations.  
- Undisclosed skill: various Muggle electronic gadgets including use of a device called The Internet _(Note: Verify accuracy of information)  
_- Rumor has it that he is capable of reeling anyone in: man, woman, and once a banshee, hook line and sinker, hence, 'ANGLER'

**COMBAT MISSIONS:**

_**2007  
**_071207-0000: Mission Zero, BASIC Operator Training

_**2008  
**_080317-4523: _CLASSIFIED  
_080528-9253: _CLASSIFIED  
_080707-0879: _CLASSIFIED  
_081002-4076: _CLASSIFIED_

_**2009  
**_090101-2366: _CLASSIFIED  
_090102-2112: _CLASSIFIED  
_090324-1892: _CLASSIFIED  
_090628-2211: _CLASSIFIED  
_090630-8898: _CLASSIFIED  
_091023-0203: _CLASSIFIED  
_091111-1112: _CLASSIFIED_

**Selection:** PASSED  
**BASIC Operator Training Course:** PASSED  
**ADVANCED Operator Training Course:** PENDING

* * *

**PERSONNEL FILE for SETH DI MEZZO  
**_(strictly confidential)_

**NAME: Seth di Mezzo  
**Call sign_:_ _"Spring Breeze"  
_Squad Designation: _Bravo Team, assassin  
_Team Designation: _Shooter  
_Partner: _Damon Knight_

**Background:  
**Age on recruitment: 30's (DOB redacted by Department of Mysteries, irretrievable)  
Recruited from: Department of Mysteries (Unspeakable for Space Chamber)

_Recruitment notes:_

- Excellent marksman skills and strong mental health; potential for ASSASSIN designation _(Note: Authorize upon completion of BASIC Operator Training Course. Addendum: designation authorized)  
_- Exceptional in Occluding, potential for infiltration  
- Excellent for covert operations  
- While the SHOOTER has a lighter role in team missions as the designated fire support, the ASSASSIN is given the most difficult covert missions: assassinations of prominent political figures in the service of the Ministry. _(Notes: To be partnered with a stable and experienced operator. Addendum: Partnered with Damon Knight.)  
_- Rumor has it that the last thing his targets would feel would be something akin to a spring breeze from the spell or bullet coming their way, hence, 'SPRING BREEZE'  
- _Addendum:_ has his eyes set on taking Malfoy's position as unofficial second POTIONEER; Knight is visibly annoyed. _(Note: Authorize upon completion of ADVANCED Operator Training Course)_

**COMBAT MISSIONS:**

_**2007  
**_071207-0000: Mission Zero, BASIC Operator Training

_**2008  
**_080317-4523: _CLASSIFIED  
_080525-8823: _CLASSIFIED  
_080605-1171: _CLASSIFIED  
_080707-0879: _CLASSIFIED  
_081002-4076: _CLASSIFIED  
_081129-9778: _CLASSIFIED_

_**2009  
**_090101-2366: _CLASSIFIED  
_090102-2112: _CLASSIFIED  
_090325-1892: _CLASSIFIED  
_090630-8898: _CLASSIFIED  
_091204-9001: _CLASSIFIED  
_091205-9002: _CLASSIFIED  
_091205-9003: _CLASSIFIED  
_091206-9004: _CLASSIFIED  
_091206-9005: _CLASSIFIED_

**Selection:** PASSED  
**BASIC Operator Training Course:** PASSED  
**ADVANCED Operator Training Course:** PENDING

* * *

**PERSONNEL FILE for DAMON KNIGHT  
**_(strictly confidential)_

**NAME: Damon Richard Knight  
**Call sign_:_ _"the Count"  
_Squad Designation: _Bravo Team  
_Team Designation 1: _Healer  
_Team Designation 2: _Potioneer  
_Partner: _Seth di Mezzo_

**Background:  
**Age on recruitment: 46  
Recruited from: Gringotts' Curse Breakers

_Recruitment notes:_

- Disclosed former professions include: Healer; Auror trainee; 3rd string Chaser for the Falcons  
- Undisclosed former professions include: underwear model – favorite centerfold for eight months in `95 (Wizard); actor/stuntman (Muggle); professional dirt bike racer (Muggle); impressionist painter (Muggle)  
- Excellent for infiltration  
- Excellent for Muggle covert operations  
- Called a miracle worker during his time in St Mungo's because of his proficiency with Healing Magic; was called Count Dracula (aka 'the COUNT') because they think he turns his patients into vampires so they wouldn't die  
- Keeps threatening everyone on the team with a Muggle silver bullet (?) if they don't behave _(Addendum: a Muggle silver bullet is apparently a rectal thermometer)_

**COMBAT MISSIONS:**

_**2007  
**_071207-0000: Mission Zero, BASIC Operator Training

_**2008  
**_080317-4523: _CLASSIFIED  
_080528-9253: _CLASSIFIED  
_080605-1171: _CLASSIFIED  
_081002-4076: _CLASSIFIED_

_**2009  
**_090101-2366: _CLASSIFIED  
_090102-2112: _CLASSIFIED  
_090328-1892: _CLASSIFIED  
_090630-8898: _CLASSIFIED  
_090921-1992:_ CLASSIFIED  
_090923-3455: _CLASSIFIED_

**Selection:** PASSED  
**BASIC Operator Training Course:** PASSED  
**ADVANCED Operator Training Course:** PENDING

* * *

**PERSONNEL FILE for DRACO MALFOY  
**_(strictly confidential)_

**NAME: Draco Lucius Malfoy  
**Call sign_:_ _"Death Eater"  
_Squad Designation: _Bravo Team  
_Team Designation: _Attack Specialist  
_Partner: _Harry Potter_

**Background:  
**Age on recruitment: 25  
Recruited from: Hit Wizard Squad (Team One, leader)

_Recruitment notes:_

- Excels in offensive spells.  
- Extreme proficiency in non-verbal spells.  
- Accomplished Legilimens and Occlumens, potential for INTERROGATOR designation _(Note: Authorize and Train upon completion of ADVANCED Operator Training Course)  
_- Unofficial secondary team lead (Notes: Harry Potter is the official secondary team lead)  
- Unofficial secondary POTIONEER, often clashes with Knight on brewing methods _(Note: while his brewing skills are superior, his knowledge of use and application is limited)  
_- Vice: chain smoker, but never drinks (?) _(Notes: Cause of vice did not show up during Selection's psych evaluation.)  
_- Call sign varies; his current team calls him D; his former team calls him DEATH.

**COMBAT MISSIONS:**

_**2007  
**_071207-0000: Mission Zero, BASIC Operator Training

_**2008  
**_080317-4523: _CLASSIFIED  
_080528-9253: _CLASSIFIED  
_080605-1171: _CLASSIFIED  
_080721-2231: _CLASSIFIED_

_**2009  
**_090101-2366: _CLASSIFIED  
_090103-6450: _CLASSIFIED  
_090328-1892: _CLASSIFIED  
_090630-8898: _CLASSIFIED  
_091003-2134: _CLASSIFIED  
_091023-0203: _CLASSIFIED_

**Selection:** PASSED  
**BASIC Operator Training Course:** PASSED  
**ADVANCED Operator Training Course:** PENDING

* * *

**PERSONNEL FILE for HARRY POTTER  
**_(strictly confidential)_

**NAME: Harry James Potter  
**Call sign_:_ CLASSIFIED  
Squad Designation: _Bravo Team, secondary team lead  
_Team Designation 1: _Defence Specialist  
_Team Designation 2: _Support Healer  
_Partner: _Draco Malfoy_

**Background:  
**Age on recruitment: 25  
Recruited from: Auror Corps (trainee, local division)

_Recruitment notes:_

- Ability to throw off Imperius, potential for covert operations and infiltrations  
- Excels in defence and shield charms  
- Has a special Protego that has a pinkish tinge instead of the usual blue _(Notes: Possibly acquired during the Second Wizarding War)  
_- Adept at minor non-verbal Healing spells  
- Officially the second team leader, but mostly defers to Malfoy _(Notes: Look into it re: trust issues re: mission distraction. Addendum: Issue resolved)_

**COMBAT MISSIONS:**

_**2007  
**_071207-0000: Mission Zero, BASIC Operator Training

_**2008  
**_080317-4523: _CLASSIFIED  
_080528-9253: _CLASSIFIED  
_080605-1171: _CLASSIFIED  
_080721-2231: _CLASSIFIED_

_**2009  
**_090101-2366: _CLASSIFIED  
_090103-6450: _CLASSIFIED  
_090328-1892: _CLASSIFIED  
_090630-8898: _CLASSIFIED  
_091003-2134: _CLASSIFIED  
_091023-0203: _CLASSIFIED_

**Selection:** PASSED  
**BASIC Operator Training Course:** PASSED  
**ADVANCED Operator Training Course:** ONGOING

* * *

tbc...


End file.
